Lorelei Ambrosia (Pamela Stephenson) is a henchwoman/moll in the 1983 film, “Superman III”.
Lorelei worked as a “Psychic Nutritionist” for the antagonist, Ross Webster (Robert Vaughn) at Webbsco Industries.
Lorelei’s personality especially early on in the movie portrayed herself as the typical ditzy blonde bimbo. She had a squeaky high pitch voice that was near the same octave as Minnie Mouse. However, we later find out that this was a cover, a fact she kept hidden from everyone, including Ross and his sister, Vera Webster (Annie Ross). Throughout the film we see several spots where she is far more intelligent than she lets on. By knowing this, we also know that Lorelei is not innocent when it comes to Ross’ plan to do in destroy Superman. We get our first glimpse of Lorelei as she walked down the Metropolis city street wearing a low-cut tight fitting white with red polka dot dress. The polka dots were in the shape of strawberries. She carried a small red purse in the shape of a strawberry around her left arm, and had red high heels on her long slender legs. The curly blonde hair and blue eyed bombshell was oblivious to the effect she was having on others as she continued her stroll. The men watched her with great interest, and the women with disgust and jealousy. She set off a series of comedy events. First a roller skater lost his attention by looking at her voluptuous body and ran into a hot-dog stand. The hot-dog stand hit a row of three phone booths that tumbled like dominoes. Windup penguin to
ys from a vendor waddled off in different directions, a seeing eye dog ran after another dog, leaving its blind man staggering into the street and grabbing the handle of a line-painting machine. A man in a cap fell into a ditch while ogling Lorelei. A bank robber made his way out after robbing a bank, and a policeman’s bullet struck a tire on a passing car, which sent it into a water hydrant. The comedy didn’t end there. Two painters on a scaffold dropped paint and a bucket onto the head of a man, who then knocked into a gumball machine, which caused a mime street performer to lose his balance. The blind man walked through an oil painting being carried out of a gallery. A delivery man with custard pies lost his balance and Superman actually diverted one of the pies from striking Lorelei in the face. The buxom Lorelei headed off the street and into the office building of the Webscoe Industries where she worked. This must have been a daily occurrence for the gorgeous Lorelei when she walked in public.
At the Daily Planet, Jimmy Olsen (Marc Malone) was showing photographs he took of Lorelei in an article he was writing on Ross Webster. When Perry White (Jackie Cooper) asks, “Who is she?” Jimmy responds, “Her name’s Lorelei Ambrosia. She’s Webster’s Girl Friday.” Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) chimmed in, “Oh, I think Saturday, too.”
On another day, they showed Lorelei arriving at Ross Webster’s office wearing a tight white skirt and cherry blossom blouse. She sat down in the office chair and swiveled around kicking her nylon covered sexy legs up on the desk, which displayed her white high heels. Vera became extremely annoyed with the rather busty Lorelei. She made no bones about her hatred of this bimbo that she felt had no place in this company.
We next see Lorelei on top of Webster’s downtown penthouse, sunning herself on a snow-covered rooftop. Ross was next to her skiing down a slope. Lorelei was seen using a metal mirror reflector to capture the sun to her face as she reclined on a deck chair. Ross skied down the slope and came to a stop next to Lorelei, and picked up some snow. He threw this on the reflector which funneled the snow down the front of her snow suit, which caused her to shriek. With the ample cleavage that poked through the zipped down ski outfit she was wearing, their was plenty of room for it to accumulate. After cleaning out the snow, the camera showed Lorelei having trouble taking off her gloves to open a bottle of suntan oil. She then rubbed in the oil between her round mounds, knowing it would be important not to allow herself to get burned there. She had a pink sun visor on her head, pink ski boots, pink leggings over her white outfit, and a pink colored vest. As Lorelei changed out of her pink boots and into her pink high heels, she remembered that Superman’s one weakness was kryptonite. Both Ross and Vera were stunned that she would know this.
In another scene we see Lorelei working out in Webster’s personal gym while Ross is conducting a business meeting with his accountant. She wore a yellow “Jane Fonda” type spandex leotard with a yellow visor on her head and yellow leggings. While using a nautilus machine, Lorelei was leaning forward pulling on the ropes attached to the counter weights. The jealous Vera, seized the moment to get her nemesis by kicking the toggle bolt out of the weights. With no tension on the ropes, the lovely Lorelei fell flat on her face. In some versions of the movie, this particular catty exchange has been removed. Too bad, since it provided some mean girl moments between Lorelei and Vera that are important to their relationship.
In one scene, she was reading on the couch with a pair of heart shaped pink glasses. She was wearing an extremely low cut form fitting pink dress, that showed off her cleavage. The camera panned in on the book, which was “Critique of Pure Reason” by Immanuel Kant. She began to talk to herself about what she was learning from the book, and her voice had lost that high pitch to it. She said, “How can he say that Pure Categories have no objective meaning in Transcendental Logic? What about Synthetic Unity?” These insightful comments are not the type we would expect from an empty headed bimbo. There was obviously some educational substance to her to go along with her good looks. When Ross entered the room, she hid the book behind a movie gossip magazine and immediately assumed her persona of the empty headed ditz.
When Superman (Christopher Reeve) was under the influence of the synthetic Kryptonite, which severely changed his moral behavior, Lorelei seduced Superman. She played the damsel in distress by perching herself on the crown head of the Statue of Liberty in Metropolis. She dangled her legs over the side while wearing a revealing red dress. When Superman arrived, he took her in his arms, and she suggested they go to her apartment. However, she requested him to do one little thing for her first. She told him that there was a boat that is somewhere it shouldn’t be. We next see Superman attack an oil tanker, by crashing directly into the hull and causing a hole in the side. This caused the oil in the tanker to spill out over a large part of the ocean. Superman then arrived at Lorelei’s apartment. Lorelei was wearing a flimsy low cut white dressing gown and led him into her bedroom where a roaring fireplace and the sound of jazz music can be heard. Lorelei laid down on the bed and he ignored her offer of champagne. Instead Superman grabbed her passionately and kissed her as the camera faded away. It is obvious that they spent the night together.
Lorelei, Ross, and Vera later use individually powered hot air balloons to arrive at the hideout entrance at the Grand Canyon, that Webscoe Industries constructed as a base for Gus’ Ultimate Computer. Here Lorelei wore a white jumpsuit, which is the same that the other two were wearing. For some reason, Lorelei does a much better job of filling out the jumpsuit than the other two.
When Superman arrived in the cave, Lorelei affectionately called him “honey”. He responded, “I don’t know you, Lady.” When she referred to the previous night together, he replied, “I’m sorry, that wasn’t me. That guy’s gone.”
Superman was then trapped in a force-field transparent bubble by Gus. After breaking out of the bubble, he was then struck with a bright green kryptonite ray. After hearing that he would go down in history as the man who killed Superman, Gus turned against his boss and attempted to shut down the computer manually. However, the computer came back to life by powering itself through the nation’s power grids, causing blackouts nationwide. It used this power to attack Ross’ sister Vera, and turning her into a cyborg zombie. The cyborg then sent a beam of power at Lorelei. She was yanked upwards and then flew across the cave with her legs and arms flailing. It seems Vera’s jealousy of Lorelei had reached her boiling point, and wanted to finally be rid of her. Lorelei hit the caves wall, and the beam continued to pin her against the side of the cave about 20 feet in the air. Ross received her wrath next, and he was struck down.
Superman later destroyed the Ultimate Computer by bringing a canister of chemicals that became acidic when overheated into the computer’s core. This freed both Ross and Lorelei from the magnetic force. Lorelei fell to the ground and landed amongst a pile of boulders and looked to be unconscious. Unfortunately, this is the last time we see Lorelei on screen, as Superman left the cave. Lorelei was left lying on the ground. It is said that Lorelei was turned over to the authorities along with Ross and his sister Vera. This is done off screen so we don’t actually see this act.
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