The First Captain America Film from 1990 That Never Was

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The First Captain America Film from 1990 That Never Was
By Hervé St-Louis
August 30, 2011 - 12:08

Studios: 21st Century Film Corporation
Writer(s): Stephen Tolkin, Lawrence Block
Starring: Matt Salinger, Ronny Cox, Scott Paulin, Ned Beatty, Darren McGavin, Francesca Neri
Directed by: Albert Pyun
Produced by: Joseph Calamari, Menahem Golan
Running Time: 97 minutes
Release Date: 6 August 2011 (Canada), 14 December 1990 (UK), July 22, 1992 (USA)
Rating: PG13
Distributors: MGM Home Entertainment

Captain America is revived from the ice he was held frozen in for the last 40 years and has to save the president of the United States who has been kidnapped by the hero’s old enemy the Red skull. Will Captain America save the president and fend off the Red Skull once and for all?

This DVD/Blu-Ray release was meant to be released at the same time as the Captain America the First Avenger blockbuster in July 2011. However, production delays have affected the release date. The original film was released in 1990 following the superb adaptation of Batman by Warner Brothers in 1989. That original Batman film also inspired other films such as a direct to video Fantastic Four film and indirectly the Dick Tracy and the Phantom film. Other series such as the Flash television show and the Hulk specials featuring the Daredevil and Thor are all from the same era. The Captain America film at the time was not considered good enough to be released to theatres and thus went as a direct to video release on VHS tape. It’s also played on late night television several times since. Thus this film was part of the first serious attempt by Hollywood to put super heroes in theatre. Mostly, except for Batman’s success, the whole endeavour was a failure. The original Captain America film is the epitome of that failure and what was wrong with Hollywood’s efforts back then.

First, there’s no point trashing the film. As a viewer, you know going in that it’s not going to be great, that it will be cheesy and over the top. You know the acting will be poor and that you won’t be able to look at the rubber costume of Captain American and his plastic shield for long without snickering. Let’s get all of that out of the way and focus on the film as part of a historical document on the period of time that followed the successful adaption of Superman and Wonder Woman to television and film prior and was influenced by the rebirth of the first gritty Batman film that dealt a blow to the campy Batman television show of the 1960s.

Captain America here has all the aesthetics of early 1970s and 1980s super hero films but with a budget spent on location shots in Croatia instead of on fleshing out the character visually. It felt more like the Wonder Woman television series than the Richard Donner Superman films. The wide scale effect of film and the production value and effects were incredible for the time. Even today, when looking at the first Superman film, once can respect it and find it watchable. The production team on the Captain America film had the budget of a television series and the effects that came with it. It was poor and not enough was invested in making Captain America look serious on film. There was an emphasis on completely mimicking the comic book-based costume, which constrained the film and made Captain America look like a big joke dressed in rubber instead of a serious-looking super hero. That the mesh like top was not replicated either did not help the situation. Over the years, I’ve heard stories about how even the ears that protruded out of the mask were rubber prosthetics and not Salinger’s real ears. I couldn’t verify that.

The story is brief. The main issue I have with it is the lack of proper build up during the war years. Captain America’s first mission is his last too. He meets the Red Skull, fights him and then is defeated and tied up to a rocket. That made him less of hero in my opinion. He was more like a normal guy. There were plot holes like how did his shield end up on the rocket? Why didn’t the Red Skull just keep it? Speaking of Red Skull, here, he’s not German but Italian. In fact there is little about Germans in this film. All the bad guys are Italian fascists. How the Red Skull was the first test subject of the super hero serum was an original idea that has been kept in the new Captain America movie. What I didn’t like and maybe it’s because it was such a big deal in Captain America the First Avenger, was how little was explained about Steve Rogers’ patriotism and why he was the best candidate for the serum. The recent Captain America film more than explored the moral backbone of the character and why coupled with the extraordinary powers the serum gave him, he is the best America has yet to offer. There is no sense of that in the original Captain America film. He is not even a known person as he only had one mission prior in World War Two.

Much of the film showed Steve Rogers out of costume. The finale, of course had him dressed up, but did not explain properly how he stopped the Red Skull’s doomsday weapon from blowing up half of Europe. The Red Skull’s daughter has some serious play time in this film. It’s fitting with her current involvement with the Marvel Comics universe.

My review copy had no extras beyond the trailer of the film. I understand that the Blu-Ray release will have more material on hand. This film is interesting as an historical record of a period of time between the 1989 Batman movie and the revival of the comic book film genre with Blade in 1998. The producers of Captain America probably saw the Batmania craze and thought they could ride on that glory while using tired production aesthetics from the past decade, instead of adopting something similar to the Batman film. The brief Flash television series did this and so did the Lois and Clark Superman television series. In the end, even the sponsoring studio saw that Captain America’s director had fail to create something worthy of a theatre release and sent the film packing to the cheap VHS aisles and late night syndication circuit. As a comic book historian, this period of time interests me a lot. It was the same one that saw the failed Superboy television series the failed Justice League pilot and more.

Again just like the original release of this film, MGM, the studio with the distribution rights to the material only provide an on-demand release of this set instead of mass marketing and distributing it worldwide. So unless you’re a hardcore fan, like me and a budding comic book film historian, chances are you’ll never see it available for orders in your local store or your preferred online shop. Again, the producers of this film are trying to ride on the success of another property instead of releasing it on its own.

Rating: 5/10