The Six Million Dollar Man: The Solid Gold Kidnapping

release year: 1973
genre: action/adventure
viewing setting: home DVD, 1/5/11

synopsis: Bionic super-agent Steve Austin leads the effort to recover a kidnapped super-diplomat before the $1 billion random must be paid.

impressions: In his second TV movie/pilot/episode, Steve Austin is playing James Bond, except he's bionic. I'm not kidding - he had one-liners, innunendos, the same kinds of situations and villains and plots, etc. He had to travel to multiple locations in Europe. He even gambled in a casino as he juggled two women, and ended up going home with one of them (to a gigantic manor/castle reachable only by boat!) There was an evil organization with people sitting around a table in their secret headquarters, making reports. The diplomat/government guy who got kidnapped was not only really important, but had a head full of secrets, so he had to be rescued. A sub-plot involved transplanting brain cells to access the memories of a dead person.

something this movie has that no other movie has: Sixty-something crates of gold being moved all over the place.

acting: Lee Majors takes a James Bond approach, and pulls it off fairly well. Richard Anderson makes his debut as Steve's boss, Oscar Goldman; ditto for Alan Oppenheimer as Dr. Rudy Wells.Elizabeth Ashley does a quirky job as a brain scientist who helps Steve. John Vernon (the dean in Animal House among many other movie and TV roles) was the main bad guy.

final word: Worth seeing, but unlike most of the regular series.

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