I watched the Richard Donner cut of "Superman II" this afternoon.
It was imminently watchable but, truthfully, it's not any kind of revelation or lost masterpiece.
How could it be? When Donner was directing "Superman: The Movie", he shot footage for both movies. At a certain point, however, he had to abandon shooting scenes for the second movie and concentrate on getting the first one ready for release.
He had quite a bit shot from which this film was pieced together, and it's fascinating to watch from the perspective of passed time, the film that ultimately was released, and the differences that exist between visions.
I do not know what squabbles went on between Donner and the Salkinds, but the fact is that Donner never really got to shoot "final" scenes of much of what he intended, so what they've pieced into this film is composited scenes and what's being called "screen test" scenes (although not "screen test" in the way most of us think of that term....one key scene is with Reeve and Kidder...and you just know their participation wasn't in question). You just know, as this movie plays, that Donner would have shot more scenes and had scenes written to cover transtions.
It is a different movie. It's interesting. It's worth viewing. Don't approach it as though it was being presented as the better movie, because there is no way that could be possible unless Donner had shot and finished the sequel and then had it rejected. He did not.
Richard Lester shot quite a bit of what was in "Superman II" (and Donner has some stuff in there, too). It's not as smoothly edited as one might wish because transition shots don't exist that would abet "smoothness" from one scene to another, but what IS in this film is choice and worth the time of everyone who is interested in what Donner's vision was and how it might have looked.
