Margot Kidder, Superman, & Plagiarism

While I should be ranting about the new Charlie & the Chocolate Factory flick I saw last night (Germany is weird with getting new films even in the English-speaking theaters), something else has stuck in my mind's eye.
I watched the first Superman film the other day. Now I've never seen these things before because:
1. I'm too young. The first Superman film came out before I was born.
2. Superman = lame. I don't know any better way of typing it. With the exception of some of the recent super-violent/cool cartoons on the Cartoon Network (JLU), I've yet to see a place where Superman was anything less than an obnoxious boyscout with x-ray eyes.
3. If your protagonist is all-powerful, there's not much of a conflict. In the Superman movie (just the first one) we see Superman: fly, use super-strength, fly into the earth's mantle to stop an earthquake, use x-ray vision, stop and reverse TIME so he can travel back in it, run at super-speed....I'm sure I'm leaving something out. Wikipedia lists Superman also having the following: telescopic vision, microscopic vision, heat vision, super hypnotism (Supeman can control your BRAIN), super hearing, Super VENTRILOQUISM (Seriously), Super breath, Super smarts and, if you read Superdickery.com, you'll also know Superman has amazing super-knitting powers. Gah. My point is that if your Super-hero can do ANYTHING there's not much of a drama. :sigh:
So my point is just that the first time I really heard about Christopher Reeve was when he broke his neck. I'm sure I'd heard of him before that but GOD... Superman's a horribly dated film staring Marlon Brando's hand and Gene Hackman with an afro. Also if you watch the film it's interesting to see the two things that denote California: A giant bridge (accurate) and a freaking goat farm (potentially not so accurate). I have no idea why the only locals (besides those on the bridge) are prancing about with goats.

Act 2:

Margot Kidder plays Lois Lane in this film. She also had a nervous breakdown after a horrible car crash and, well...things got pretty WEIRD for her. The following is from HouseofDiabolique.com. (I would link but the article and the rest of the site is in "hibernation" something that happens to small-run websites from time to time...luckily I had the article saved on my computer).

Not too long ago, Margot Kidder was found hiding in the bushes behind a house in suburban Los Angeles. She had been missing for over a week. When the police arrived, they tried to convince her to leave the bushes on her own by saying, "There are black widow spiders living in those bushes, you better come out."

But Margot merely replied, "Ha! There are much worse things than black widow spiders after me."

When Margot did emerge from the bushes the officers saw that her head was nearly shaved and that she was missing her two front teeth. They could recognize her only from her voice.

Margot had last been seen a week prior when a friend dropped her off at Los Angeles airport, purportedly to catch a plane to New York. Instead she intercepted a television crew from Nashville, in town to cover the Country Music Awards. She followed them throughout the airport, pointing at their beepers and muttering, "I know you're after me and you're sending signals with those things!"

Margot followed them into a Hertz Rent-a-Car, where she stayed for almost an hour passing notes to the salespeople.

The first one read "Drive my jacket 100 miles from here and throw it."

The last one simply read "I am dead."

Man. When I have a nervous breakdown I can only hope to be so cool.
-jared