The Marvels of Shame: Captain America 1979 version

There are movies using Marvel characters and worlds that some prefer to forget. In this series of articles we will explore these “wonders of shame”, products so unsuccessful that they can never rise above the level of the license they use. But is there anything to stay there? We will see this in the first films of our selection: Captain America TV Films from 1979.

Captain America is played by Reb Brown, a former American footballer who became an actor. After filming the episode of Happy Days (S05E12), Rebber approaches the producer and asks if he knows how to behave. He answers yes and he is offered the role of Steve Rogers. This is probably the easiest casting in the history of television!

The TV movie script is written by Don Ingles, the future producer of Fantasy Island, based on the story of Chester Krumholtz, who worked on Kojak or Mannix. The pitch features Steve Rogers, the motocross pilot in full questioning. He discovers that his father created a “super hormone” called FLAG, a latent force of increasing speed.

Steve’s father made a serum and became a crime fighter. Steve refuses to take the torch. Later, when he became the victim of a fatal accident, he was finally given a serum to cure him. He is confident he will use these opportunities against a millionaire terrorist who wants to capture California. Not to be overlooked, he wears his father’s uniform and becomes Captain America.

That same year, another superhero story saw the light of day, Captain America II: Death Very Soon, again with Red Brown. In this new adventure, General Miguel (Christopher Lee) kidnaps a professor studying gerontology and asks him to work on a product that accelerates aging. Clearly, Steve Rogers is making his way.

We can mention that in the first TV movie the role of Dr. Wendy Day was played by Connie Seleka, and in the sequel another actor, Heather Menzie-Urich.

To say that two feature films are failures is not appreciated because the story of the character’s origins is not respected, the helmet adorned with its fins was imposed by the authorities for safety, the villains do not come from comics and the intrigues are an excuse.

The apparent lack of resources on screen (most of the budget is devoted to motorcycle tricks and motorcycle pictures), the very relative involvement of the actors, and the low cost production make these two films a failure, which offends the original. working. Car scenes from the first to the second are even re-used.

If we look at it from a historical point of view, these TV movies are against the new Hollywood, the cinematic movement that protests the American dream born in the middle of the hippie wave in 1968-69, in which it is shown lost and abandoned.

We are ten years later, in 1979, and if at the start of the first TV movie Steve Rogers also gets lost in his life and lives in a van looking for meaning in his life, things change very quickly. In “Death Too Soon” Steve Rogers is even a pre-installed hero who ensures everyone’s safety, portrayed as friends of older characters, animals and children.

Where New Hollywood directors have shown a decline in the American ideal, these two Captain America chooses to show that he still exists on the condition that we believe in him and that we are ready to defend his country. A patriotic speech depicting Reagan’s presidency two years later and his conservative turnaround.

Their low quality will make these TV movies worthy of never becoming the series’ pilots. To be a success, two crossovers were planned: the first with Spider-Man, starring Nicolas Hammond in The Spider-Man (1977-1979), and the second with The Incredible Hulk, interpreted by Lou Ferrinio, in the series of the same name. (1977-1982). They will never see the light of day.

In France, it is surprising that Death Too Soon was released in theaters in 1979 under the title Captain America and was the first contact of the general public with the superhero. After another devastating 1990 version, the Marvel character will become just a cult in the version embodied by Chris Evans in Marvel’s cinematic world. Today this role is played by Anthony Mackey.

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