#DoomsdayPrep: Cometh the hour, cometh the van.
Between the geopolitical humiliation of the Iran Hostage Crisis and the queuing for petrol that made the simple act of driving feel like a logistical miracle, the national mood in 1979 America had shifted from “world leader” to “world-weary”, where instead of influence and global power the only thing that seemed to be expanding were the hems of the flared trousers. Into this vacuum of confidence stepped a version of Captain America that perfectly encapsulated the era’s reduced expectations.
Reb Brown’s Steve Rogers is the definitive hero for a nation that had stopped trying. He’s no scrawny from Brooklyn empowered more by an unshakeable moral compass than super soldier serum; this Rogers is a former Marine turned itinerant artist who seems to view the prospect of saving the world as a massive inconvenience to his planned schedule of drawing seagulls. Even in his empowered state, he doesn’t represent the peak of human potential so much as the peak of mid-effort gym membership. When he finally receives the FLAG serum – a substance that sounds more like a MAGA branded homeopathic vaccine substitute – it isn’t because he’s been selected for his character or grit, but because his father’s DNA makes him the only viable candidate for a spot of chemically-enhanced nepotism.
Much of the film takes place before Rogers formally accepts the moniker of Captain America – his father’s nickname as a 1940s government agent. That doesn’t seem to stop the villains taking an early shot at killing him, having somehow worked out that a travelling sketch artist living out of his van was somehow a threat to their plans to detonate a neutron bomb in an American city for nefarious purposes that are as ill-defined as their plans are ill-thought out.
The production design manages to make the secret origins of a superhero look as glamorous as a damp Sunday in Scranton. The high-tech government facility is a collection of beige rooms and flickering fluorescent tubes that suggest the Pentagon’s budget had been entirely diverted into wood-panelling and there’s no sense of wonder here, only a lingering suspicion that the entire project was filmed in the basement of a local municipal office building.
When the iconic suit makes its debut, the visual impact is less “First Avenger” and more “Last Choice at the Fancy Dress Shop”. Ditching the mask for a blue motorcycle helmet, complete with painted-on wings, is a stroke of genius assuming your intent is for the sentinel of liberty to look like a particularly patriotic delivery driver and the rest of the costume isn’t much better: a polyester catastrophe, featuring red suspenders that imply the Captain’s greatest enemy isn’t international terrorism, but the terrifying prospect of his trousers falling down during a light jog. There’s certainly plenty of evidence to suggest that the 1990s aversion to comic book accurate superhero costumes finds its roots in these 1970s fashion horror shows.
If the fashions are gaudy, the performances are anything but. Reb Brown delivers a performance so emotionally numb that he makes Flash Gordon’s Sam Jones look like Daniel Day-Lewis while Len Birman seems to have rerecorded all of his dialogue as Roger’s government contact Dr Mills in post, and apparently following completely different direction from when he filmed his scenes. The rest of the cast are so anonymous and interchangeable that you’ll struggle to remember who they are while you’re watching the movie.
It’s in the action, though, that Captain America really makes its mark, choregraphing a masterclass in the art of the underwhelming. Characterised by a reliance on slow-motion, the infrequency of the action only serves to give the audience time to count exactly how many times the stuntman’s wig nearly falls off. As the old song goes, “When Captain America throws his mighty shield, all those who chose to oppose his shield must yield” but 1979’s Captain America eschews a shield in favour of an obviously plastic off-brand Frisbee with delusions of grandeur. Its transparent stripes do little to elevate the classic design and while its conspicuous wobbling when affixed to the front of the CapCycle (more on that in a moment) might seem to be the height of risibility, it’s nothing compared to the way it moves sedately through the air when “hurled” nor how feebly it bumps into its victims – eventually.
Likewise, the CapCycle, launched like that old Evil Knievel toy from the back of Rogers’ van looks like an ordinary roadster overwhelmed with plastic and carboard to form part of a 4th July parade float.
1979’s Captain America operates on the assumption that a man jumping over a picket fence in slow-motion is cinematic shorthand for superhuman prowess and that bending the story around weak sauce stunt set-ups with an obviousness that would make even Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie blush is a substitute for narrative tension. It presents a Captain America who doesn’t so much fight for American values as he does fight the audience’s insomnia. Boring, boneheaded and badly made, the most fantastical thing about Captain America is not only that it got a sequel but that they somehow persuaded Christopher Lee to appear in it.
