Focus Features Ben Affleck, above, portrays George Reeves in Allen Coulter's "Hollywoodland."

By Barbara Vancheri, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Great Caesar's ghost! Ben Affleck as George Reeves?

Not the first actor who comes to mind when casting TV's Superman but, once outfitted in a 1950s suit with padded shoulders, snappy hat and black-rimmed glasses, Affleck looks enough like Reeves to pass. The cleft in his chin certainly helps the illusion.

Affleck stars in "Hollywoodland," an examination of fame, identity, the perils of being typecast and whether Reeves really pulled the trigger on the gun pressed to his head June 16, 1959. Headlines around the world echoed the one stripped across the New York Post: "TV's 'Superman' Kills Self."

		'Hollywoodland' Starring: Ben Affleck, Adrien Brody, Diane Lane. Director: Allen Coulter. Rating: R for language, some violence and sexual content. "Hollywoodland" Web site

The movie explores rumors that have long surrounded Reeves' death and how it might have been linked to his affair with Toni Mannix (Diane Lane) or to her husband, Eddie Mannix (Bob Hoskins), a former "fixer" turned MGM executive. He and publicity chief Howard Strickling (Joe Spano) reportedly kept stars in line and made sure their dirty little secrets didn't make it into print.

Or was Reeves' fiancee, Leonore Lemmon (Robin Tunney), somehow involved in his death? She was among the guests at a small party at his house the night he died in an upstairs bedroom.

No prints were found on the gun and the casing was under Reeves' body, which showed signs of unexplained bruising. In addition to the bullet hole in the ceiling, there were a couple in the floor.

If Reeves had been a TV superstar today, his death would come under endless media and Internet scrutiny. But this was a different time, when scandals were hushed up, and studios, cops and hired guns flexed their muscles.

Reeves' mother (Lois Smith) doesn't believe her son committed suicide, and she hires a private investigator, Louis Simo (Adrien Brody), to snoop around. If Simo wants to weigh the effect of Reeves' suicide, he need only look to his devastated son, who worshipped the man of steel.

Director Allen Coulter and writer Paul Bernbaum open their movie on the day Reeves died and then split the story into two. They recount Reeves' struggle for recognition and how "The Adventures of Superman" proved to be both a blessing and a curse as it gave him work and fame, but as a children's TV star, not a movie actor.

Reeves' story is intercut with that of Simo, a detective who initially takes the case for the cash but becomes convinced that things are not what they appear.

That, of course, is especially true in Hollywood, land of carefully cultivated illusions where Superman is living in a house bought by his married mistress. And where he occasionally plunges to the floor when the guy hoisting the wires to make him fly fumbles the ropes.

Conspiracy expert Oliver Stone has nothing to fear from Coulter, known for his HBO directing credits, or first-time screenwriter Bernbaum.

Although the authors of the 1996 book "Hollywood Kryptonite" (who floated foul play) are listed as production consultants, the movie makers don't press a case for any particular single-bullet theory but dramatize how it might have happened as a suicide or an accident or a murder. Take your pick.

They don't touch on what Reeves' co-stars or friends thought about the possibility of murder. They also don't re-create much of 1950s Los Angeles, perhaps because part of the movie was shot in Canada.

The lure of "Hollywoodland" is its enduring mystery and its cast, particularly Affleck and Lane. Brody's fictional private eye, however, is given enough complications for a movie of his own, with an estranged or former wife, son, erstwhile girlfriend-assistant and an obsessed client who refuses to believe his wife isn't cheating on him.

"Hollywoodland" doesn't provide a definitive answer on who fired the gun that night 47 years ago. But it does remind us that while Reeves played Superman, he was no Boy Scout in blue. His death, just like his life, was never as simple as we once believed.