Owing to the success of The Incredible Hulk TV series CBS tried its hand at Captain America with a couple of TV movies in 1979. These films seem to have been intended to pave the way for a Captain America TV show but that series never happened, which is likely a good thing because they weren't very good. The first film of course centered on Captain America's origin story, only its not the one you know, rather its kind of the bastard son of that one. Former College football player Reb Brown plays Steve Rogers, here a former Marine whose a talented painter and sketch artist (I guess as an attempt by the screen writers to convince you this lug of a character has some depth and a soul). Rogers father was a government scientist who unbeknownst to Steve developed a formula that heightened his strength, hearing, agility etc and allowed him to moonlight as a 'super hero' derisively dubbed by his enemies as 'Captain America'. With Steve's dad now dead his good friend and fellow scientist Simon Mills (Len Birman) tries to convince Steve take his dad's serum and become the new Captain America, as said formula is apparently, and conveniently, fatal to none Rogereses. At first Steve's all like 'no', but then when an Oil millionaire with a rather stupid plan kills one of Steve's friends and threatens the life of said friends daughter, Steve's all like 'yes I guess so'. What follows are some pretty unremarkable "action sequences" and visual effects that go a good way towards supporting the thesis that doing super hero's right was beyond the technical abilities of 1970's American television. Still the network persisted and later that same year released Captain America II: Death Too Soon, which while quite a bit better then the original film, is still pretty poor and was not a death too soon for this network attempt at adapting Captain America for television.
As I said this second Captain America TV movie was better then the original, owing in large part to not being burdened by a clunky origin story. Rogers, yet again bumbing around the west coast and painting out of his van, and with a pet cat no less, is called in by Doc Mills to help when notorious terrorist General Miguel (played by Christopher Lee, who automatically ups the watchablity factor of anything he is in) has snuck into the U.S. and kidnaped yet another government scientist. Rogers eventually tracks some of Miguel's men to a small Oregon town which they are using to test the rapid ageing chemical Miguel got from the government scientist and intends to use on the city of Portland should he not be given a billion dollars by the U.S. government. Rogers of course eventually foils Miguel with the help of a pretty widow and her young son, as well as Mills associate Dr. Wendy Day, who was played in the first film by Heather Menzies (Jessica 6 from the Logan's Run TV series as well as Mrs. Robert Urich) but in this film by Connie Sellecca two years away from playing another super hero's love interest in the ABC television series The Greatest American Hero, which by the way is so much better then these movies.
CBS's Captain America TV movies are a little interesting as artifacts of their time but not as much else, certainly not as entertainment, I was going to show these to my niece and nephews but there would be no point, they would be bored, much as I was. Unable to do Captain America right they simply tried to get a rip off version of The Six Million Dollar Man out of him, even down to having Len Birman basically play Richard Anderson. Star Reb Brown can not count acting among his talents, though his kind of reluctant, not fully engaged rendering of Steve Rogers in a way makes him the perfect Captain America for the Carter era. Still probably best to keep these two oddities down in the nostalgia hole where they belong.
Captain America *
Captain America II: Death Too Soon *1/2
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