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 My good friend Julian Adderley recently visited the Superman-The Movie Kent farm filming location in Canada. Watch his "Triumph Over Smallville" featurette above. I wish to thank Julian for shooting and editing this very special piece of history -- I was quite moved by it. Enjoy! Want to know more about the truck shown in the featurette? Request to join the CapedWonder™ Facebook group! Julian also shot some great photos of the Kent farm. Three are below. More will be posted later. Thanks Julian!
 It is my sincere pleasure to share with you some wonderful stories and photos from Superfan Jason Thomas of Okotoks, Alberta, Canada, who has been on a mission to find various locations in Canada that were used during the filming of Superman-The Movie (and Superman III). Through much research and determination, I am happy to announce that Jason has successfully found the farm, cemetary and school locations! Congratulations, Jason, and thanks for sharing! Your contributions are such a fantastic addition to this website! I have prepped Jason's photos to look the very best possible. I even went so far as to turn some of the farm photos into dramatic B&W images. I've also included Superman-The Movie screenshots of these three locations. I hope you enjoy everything! More photos later...stay tuned!
THE KENT FARM AND SMALLVILLE HIGH SCHOOL
I thought I would share with everyone my little story about my search for the farm used in Superman-The Movie as Clark Kent's childhood home. I never actually dreamt that I would one day be able to set foot on the same place where young Clark Kent discovered his powers and discovered the crystal in the barn! This trek all started for me in April 2009 when I found out that Margot Kidder would be a guest at the Calgary Comic Expo. I was thrilled to be able to meet her, so the Friday before the Expo I sat down to watch Superman-The Movie again. About halfway through the movie, I hit the pause button and thought to myself, "Why haven't I been to any of the local filming locations since I live in Canada?" So I went on the Internet and found a good start - the Smallville High School, which is located in Barons, Alberta. The next day my wife and I loaded our two young sons into our van and headed out on our journey. We had a great day driving there and taking photographs. While we were there, I kept my eyes open for a farm that could have been used for the Kent farm, thinking it must be close to the school's location. We found a similar looking farm and took some photos, but later realized that we were at the wrong place. Our next day trip was to High River to see some of the locations from Superman III, and to check out a place referred to on a tourism website as "Superman's Childhood Home". It turned out to be Lana Lang's house form Superman III, which was fun to see, but it just couldn't be the same place. I wondered if the Lana Lang house had moved to that location and the farm itself had had some major changes? It just didn't feel right to me so, once again, I scoured the internet for information. I also e-mailed every local tourism place, historical society and a local film locations website. Most people were very helpful, but they all, for the most part, assumed the house in High River WAS the "Superman house". I knew it couldn't be. One of the tourism places suggested the Making of Superman-The Movie book, which I thought was a good idea. I bid on one on eBay and bought the four disc DVD edition of the movie that I didn't have. It also had a ‘making of’ feature that my other two versions of the movie didn't have. I posted on a forum asking if anyone had that book or the four disc DVD set. Soon afterwards, I received a response with a quote from the 'making of' book saying that the farm was filmed near Blackie, Alberta. My family and I decided to just drive to Blackie and look around. This is where I have to give my wife credit. She kept stopping and asking people about it once we arrived in that area. Most people suggested it was in High River, or hadn't heard of it at all. The poor guy at the local store had an idea of the direction it was in, but wasn't sure. After driving around the countryside for a couple of hours, we were close to giving up. We went back to the store to get snacks and drinks and ask people one more time. While we were there, a woman arrived who had been there during the filming over thirty years ago! She knew the farm and gave us directions! We headed out once again, but got discouraged as we past the place we expected it to be. We decided to head back towards town one street over, and as we drove over a hill we knew we had the right place! FINALLY!! As soon as I saw the farm I clapped and yelled, "THAT'S IT!!" It looked nearly the same as it did in the movie, although much older. We drove past to the other side where we spotted a neighbor working in his yard. He assured us it was the Superman house, so we asked him if he thought we could look around (since the owner does not live there). He must have thought we looked sincere enough because he said “OK”. It was all I could do to not run up the driveway (I had my toddler with me, so I had to go at his speed). My wife was behind at the van waiting for our ten-month-old baby to wake up. It was so great to get up close. I started looking at the barn when I realized that my toddler was gone! I started calling him as my wife was arriving. We spotted him trying to open the front door of the house and yelling, "Potty!" It's hard enough to get him to volunteer to use a potty at home, so he must have felt right at home at the Kent farm. We took as many photographs as we possibly could, and thoroughly enjoyed being in such a great film setting. It was all quite surreal. Looking at the photos now, I still find it hard to believe that we were actually there. I still feel a lot of relief when I see farm houses and barns, and I don't have to feel that frustration of not knowing where the real Kent farm is and wondering if it even still exists. I am happy to report that it does exist today!
 
 
 
 
 
THE SMALLVILLE CEMETERY
My family and I decided to have one last trip to Superman locations in Southern Alberta, so we decided to head to Beynon, Alberta (a former CNR train stop in a very scenic valley with a couple of grain elevators and a handful of houses). This was the valley that the Smallville cemetery overlooked in Superman-The Movie. I began my search by visiting the Internet for cemeteries, and even looking around the Drumheller area on Google Earth for a church near the valleys. Once I had listened to my DVD with Richard Donner's commentary, I knew that the cemetery and the church were made for the film. I learned that the church and flagpole were forced-perspective miniatures in the background, with the church being just five feet tall! The only clue I had about Beynon was from a website that mentioned that the grain elevators in the valley below the cemetery location were seen in Superman-The Movie. From that information, I found out where this "town" was and made some maps. The maps I have were so obscure with Township roads and Range Roads. I really thought we would be able to take a decent road near it, and then just pop across a dirt road or two until we came across the location. WRONG!!! The maps I made from Google and Yahoo maps were fairly vague, so I had to rely on some on location hunting. After the last paved road, we were basically winging it. I was looking for a township road, but none of them seemed to have signs, and the roads conditions started getting HORRIBLE!!! They were all fairly level at this point in our journey. We stuck to the one dirt road heading east and were really flying blind. The roads were very soft loose gravel with LOTS of mud underneath. Even going on the flat roads became a challenge. We were getting close to turning back since it just didn't seem worth it with the kids and the van. We eventually pulled into a small oil substation HOPING there would be someone there who could give us some idea if we were going in the right direction, or if we should just turn back. As I compared my "maps" to one I was peeking at through an office window, a godsend named Bruce (the only person there) came up to us. He told us that we were on the right track to Beynon, but I was very nervous about the roads. Bruce figured we would be ok since we made it that far, and told us to keep heading east. As we started headed east, we stopped at one point. The muddy roads were getting too risky for us. That's when Bruce pulled up in his car and said that he would drive with us if we wanted to carry on at the turnoff. We agreed, and he pointed us towards the valley and drew a little map for us while it was hailing. We asked for his cell phone number just in case (even though he said we may have to do some hiking to get a signal). We then carried on alone, but were getting very nervous because the roads just seemed to get softer and muddier. The roads winded and turned and eventually we started downhill. No going back now! We made it to the valley and stopped and took some photos. Honestly, at that point I did not care. I just wanted to get out of there. It was not fun being in the middle of nowhere with a vehicle that has no right being there - and the poor kids. My wife came through and said, "If we are here we are talking photos. It was very cool in the valley, and I was able to see the hill I figured was the "cemetery hill". It was really a shame the grain elevators weren't there anymore. The valley really seemed a LOT smaller than I imagined, perhaps a quarter of the size. It looks so vast in the movie, yet I could walk across it in minutes. I own a few older photos of the area , so I wondered HOW IN THE HECK did people drive those old cars in and out of this valley?!? I am guessing the muddy/loose gravel thing is not common for this area, but I will NOT be going back unless I have a 4x4 vehicle! We took several photos in the valley, and then a truck came along. It was Bruce again. He was headed home and decided to go this way to check on us. He told us that once we made it up the road out we should be fine, and that he would try driving the road himself, and if it seemed bad he would come back to tell us. He didn't come back…a good sign. After taking more photos, my family and I started heading up and out of the valley. The road up runs right beside the "cemetery" hill. That was the worst part of the day. It wasn't horribly steep, but the roads were so muddy that we just couldn't keep our speed. I was begging for a higher power's help at one point when we came to a very near standstill. If we had stopped there we would have been in BIG trouble. Backing a minivan down a narrow curved road in the mud is not my idea of a good time! We BARELY made it to the top of the hill. I cannot stress enough how what a close call that part of the trek was. Once we hit the peak, we stopped and I grabbed the camera and ran back the "cemetery" hill. There was a bit of a road that branched off of the road we were on. That would have been the road the Kent truck was on in the movie. I had to run/walk a fair distance to get to the hill on my own. My wife stayed at the van with the kids. As I found with the valley, the cemetery hill was WAY smaller than I had imagined. A miniature five foot church and flagpole definitely add to the illusion. There really was nothing to see on the hill. I couldn't believe how small it was. I tried to take photos from the same point of view as the movie. There were no signs of the cemetery, the fence, or the church. One thing that struck me as odd was a few bare spots that could have been where a grave stone had been, but I had my doubts. My thought was that if the grass had been dug out thirty years ago it would not be visible today. After paying my respects to Pa Kent I headed back to the van. We were really not out of the woods as we had many twists and turns and muddy spots to try not to get stuck in. Of course, our toddler cried potty constantly, so our stops only prolonged the anxiety. I was so relieved when we finally got to the highway - the PAVED highway. I really wish I could have enjoyed it more, and had done some more sightseeing in the valley, but I just wanted to get to safe roads! It is strange how when you are in a place in person, it never seems to 'feel' the way you expected it to. The valley looked right to me, just much smaller and, of course, lacking the grain elevators. The cemetery location was so much smaller than I expected. I really wonder how Richard Donner came across this out of the way location. They must have spent some long days looking for just the right spot, hopefully using a 4x4 vehicle!!!!!
See more Smallville photos Stories and photos are © Copyright 2009 by Jason Thomas, and are not to be reproduced or excerpted without prior written permission. All Rights Reserved. Additional photos are © Copyright 2009 by Jim Bowers. Every effort has been made by the author/photographer and CapedWonder™.com to make the above information as accurate and organized as possible.
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