1979’s CAPTAIN AMERICA II: A Salute to the Red, White and Kitsch
An ANNIVERSARY INSIDE LOOK: Christopher Lee classes up the joint… — UPDATED 11/23/22: The TV movie Captain America II: Death Too Soon — starring Reb Brown and Christopher Lee — aired 43 years ago on Nov. 23, 1979. Perfect time to re-present this piece from 2021. Dig it. — Dan — Actor Reb Brown’s birthday was the other day and Rob Kelly stopped in with a REEL RETRO CINEMA column on the 1979 TV flick Captain America. Well, as you likely know, that movie had a sequel the same year, so Rob’s back with a look at the second — and final — installment of Brown’s brief run as the Star-Spangled Avenger. — Dan — By ROB KELLY Reb Brown returned as the Red, White, and Blue Avenger in Captain America II: Death Too Soon, a mere nine months after the first TV movie aired. In this one, Steve is a local artist who has befriended the elderly townsfolk in a small beach town. When one of them mentions that “bands of roving gangs” have been mugging senior citizens for their Social Security checks, Steve sets a trap and dons his Captain America costume to apprehend them all. Meanwhile, Steve’s old pal Dr. Mills (Len Birman) is disturbed to find the lab of Dr. Ilson, a colleague of his, has been ransacked, and the doctor missing. The only clue is the letters “MIGU” written on a piece of broken glass. Birman concludes this means “Miguel,” the name of a freelance revolutionary who has been responsible for several acts of terrorism across the globe in the last few years. Miguel (played by the legendary Christopher Lee), has holed up in an abandoned American prison, and is keeping Ilson imprisoned while he works on his experimental formula, focused on reversing the aging process. His plan is to hold an American city hostage if his ransom demands are not met, and that city is — Portland, Oregon! Steve goes — well, not really undercover, exactly, since he dons his garish red, white, and blue helmet and shield combo and blasts out the back of his van on his stunt cycle — to investigate at a local warehouse. He finds a drug from Ecuador used in Ilson’s experiments and tracks a small sample of it, assuming whoever ends up with it is probably Ilson’s...
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