3 Supermen and a Mad Girl

aka Çilgin kiz ve üç süper adam

1973
Directed by Cavit Yürüklü
Written by Volkan Kayhan

Turkey produced some of the weirdest super hero films that ever existed, in their unique brand of mish-mash, zero budgets, and macho manliness. Of those super hero films, 3 Supermen and a Mad Girl is among the cream of the crop for crazy awesomeness. It’s a sort of riff on the Italian 3 Supermen movies, but going much further into the realm of costumed heroes, masked villains, secret plots, catsuited vamps, cardboard robots, and fistfight mania. 3 Supermen and a Mad Girl feels like a live-action comic book, or even a cartoon.

The three stars of 3SAAMG wear orange and black Superman suits complete with goofy masks. Following the premise of the Italian 3 Supermen films (one of which, 3 Supermen At The Olympic Games, would eventually incorporate footage from this film), the suit renders the wearers invulnerable and grants them super powers. The costume capers don’t end there, the Supermen fight a criminal organization staffed with goons wearing essentially green KKK outfits with purple domino masks, supported by a man named Sheytan, who wears a rubber devil mask, red cloak, and black gloves. There is a gaggle of babe dressed in red bikinis/miniskirts and masks, and the whole outfit is lead by a woman wearing a red Vampira uniform with a blonde wig and mask. Writer Volkan Kayhan deserves a million Oscars for creating something this wacky.

Worst Naked Gun opening credits ever!

This being a Turkish film, you can be assured the print looks like it was ran over by a bus filled with puking gophers, violated by amorous porcupines, and then nuked from orbit. Sections of the film appear to be missing, giving it a running time just over an hour. The 3 Supermen At The Olympic Games film that uses footage from 3SAAMG has longer snippets of some of the scenes, and in much better condition, but what exactly is missing besides a few shots of people walking in hallways I don’t know at this time as I haven’t watched the Olympic Games film. As usual, there are no subtitles on our copy. But when has that ever stopped us? At TarsTarkas.NET, we don’t need no stinking subtitles!!!

Playboy Superman (Levent Çakır) – This Süper Adam is a rich playboy spy who men want to be and women want to be with. He’s so suave, he’s already had sex with you. He even woos Brown-Haired Girl (Yeşim Yükselen), who becomes at the center of the grand conspiracy. Actor Levent Çakır is a familiar site to genre fans, having appeared in Bedmen and the Zagor pictures. Big Superman (Altan Bozkurt) – It’s the big Süper Adam who crushes the puny humans beneath his feet. Okay, maybe he’s not that big, but he’s still huge and beats up bad guys. Small Superman (Hüseyin Sayar) – Süper Adam – small – besides being smaller than the others, he is also more childish, playing with puppets and whatnot. Hüseyin Sayar was Robin in Bedmen, thus we got a Superman film where Batman and Robin both star as Supermen. Suck on that, DC! Mad Girl (Emel Özden) – Mad Girl is the Vampira-ish lady who is totally evil and filled with evilness. Her real identity is a mystery, but it definitely isn’t Brown-Haired Girl’s stepmom Çılgın Kız. GUess who else was in Bedmen? Sheytan (Nubar Terziyan) – the guy behind it all Who is Sheytan? is totally not Brown-Haired Girl’s dad Alpanu. He’s so evil, he even kills his henchmen such as the mad scientist Dr. Zalkon. The Robot (???) – A robot which is a guy in a cardboard box with silver paint, holding a gun also made out of boxes with silver paint. He’s awesome. Greenies (various) – The villains’ goons are dressed in green with purple domino masks and KKK hoods. They show up to fight the 3 Supermen at various times, and are about as effective as blind stormtroopers with both hands tied before their backs.