Captain America

This serial isn't exactly what fans of the Captain America comic book character might expect. Here's the "bad" news: The hero in this serial isn't the same Captain America as in the comic books. This hero is called Captain America and wears a costume close to the one in the comics, but that's where the similarities end. This guy isn't Steve Rogers. He doesn't have a special shield and instead he just uses a gun!

Now here's the good news: This isn't bad! There's plenty of fun stuff in this one for serial fans. Some have commented on Dick Purcell's "pudgy" physique, but he still makes a fine 1940's serial hero whose quick on the trigger. I wouldn't mess with the guy. Purcell's Captain America is far more lethal than his comic book counterpart and he has no problem pulling a gun and sending his enemies to their graves. Purcell's Captain is one deadly superhero. His Captain America kills four different guys in just the first 15 minutes of the serial! The Captain's gal pal Gail Richards (who is very cute) also packs a pistol and knows how to use it!

The silly: There are always silly elements of comic book movies and my favorite bit of silliness in this serial is "the vibrator". The bad guys really want to get their hands on a brilliant scientist's "vibrator". At one point the scientists actually asks the chief villain "What do you know about my vibrator?"!LOL!

The verdict: Captain America is an extremely entertaining serial with plenty of enjoyable moments. This Captain America is a different guy from the comic version, but he's more of a straight shooting vigilante and I liked Purcell's Captain's style. This is fun stuff! It's a blast of entertaining escapism and I enjoyed every second of it. Captain America isn't the best serial you'll ever see, but that's part of it's charm. I give Captain America an A+ for being topnotch fun.

No, it's just a cheap 1940s serial using the Cap's good name. If you are a fan of the comic book, you will be greatly disappointed. They have radically changed the character. No shield, no Bucky, no fighting the Nazis, no wings on the side of his mask and most importantly: Captain America is now a District Attorney and no longer a GI.

Dick Purcell as Captain America? Don't look too closely when he changes into his costume. It is pretty obvious that he was not in the best physical shape when he made this serial(can you say flabby?). It is also VERY obvious that a stunt man is performing most of the action here. Almost every chapter has an obligatory fist fight that is shot and performed in exactly the same way. The villain is rather bland and although he uses an alias (The Scarab), he doesn't wear a disguise of any kind. The story is repetitive and very simple. The effects are laughable and the action is average. On the plus side we have sexy Lorna Gray as the D.A.'s assistant and the good Captain gets to ride on a cool looking motorcycle in one early chapter. Overall OK but nothing special.

In the 1940s, every studio had at least one genre they excelled at. Universal had horror films, Warner Brothers had crime dramas and social commentaries, MGM had lavish musicals and costume dramas. Republic Studios was near the bottom of the barrel, but they had something they did better than anyone else: serials, weekly chapterplays where the heroes faced a deadly peril at the end of each episode. No one did them better than Republic. They had the best writing, music, special effects, stuntmen, and these factors added up to the best serials of all time: `Zorro's Fighting Legion,' `The Lone Ranger,' `The Adventures of Captain Marvel,' `Spy Smasher,' and others.

But by 1944, the Republic formula had become just that, formula. `Captain America' is a product of a studio and a genre in decline. While the movie is technically proficient and slickly produced, the thrill and excitement is gone.

Any Captain America fan seeing this movie without prior warning is in for a shock: Republic was notorious for making arbitrary changes to characters, and Captain America had it worse than anyone. Instead of being Private Steve Rogers of the United States Army, now he was Grant Gardner, District Attorney of an unnamed American city. His trademark shield was gone, replaced by a mundane .38-caliber revolver. His sidekick, Bucky, was also missing, so Cap was assisted by an efficient secretary, Gail Richards (Lorna Grey). Most bizarre was ignoring the whole World War II angle – instead of having Captain America battle spies and saboteurs like he did in the comics, they had him battling a run-of-the-mill criminal mastermind, Cyrus Maldor (Lionel Atwill), alias the Scarab. It strikes me as an odd choice for an overtly patriotic hero in the middle of a world war, but…

Dick Purcell does a good job as Grant Gardner / Captain America, although he wasn't the best physical match for the part. Most of the young, trim guys were off fighting the war, so instead you have the nicely-rounded Purcell in the tights. Sometimes he looks more like Captain Dad than Captain America, but Purcell still does a decent job. Lorna Grey makes a surprisingly sexy sidekick (I can imagine younger moviegoers in 1944 lamenting Cap hanging out with a girl instead of his pal Bucky, while the slightly older audience would see the improvement). Lionel Atwill is appropriately scheming and menacing, but his climactic fistfight with Captain America stretches credibility a little too much.

The two words that best describe `Captain America' are `competent' and `tired.' The serial goes through all the paces and delivers some excitement, but the classic Republic crispness, the snap, is gone. The serials would die slowly over the next twelve years, doomed to exhaustion and competition from television, but the glories of those years live on in memory.

Captain America--the Star Spangled Avenger--minus the shield, his youthful sidekick, Bucky Barnes, and the Red Skull. The late Dick Purcell plays the crusading district attorney Grant Gardner in one of Republic's finest cliffhangers; who, attempts to uncover and stop the evil/cunning Scarab's "Purple Death" plot. Sadly, Purcell passed away before this serial's release. Lionel Atwill is great as the sinister Museum Curator, Dr. Cyrus Maldor. Maldor has been killing off members of his South American expedition to gain control of their wealth and stewardship of the museum. Lorna Gray is superb as Gardner's faithful assistant and the damsel in constant distress. The omnipresent George J. Lewis carries out the Scarab's evil plans as badguy, Bart Matson.

Cap must even combat Professor Dodge's (Hugh Southern) "Dynamic Vibrator"--ouch! Can Cap thwart the evil doctor's plans? Will Maldor manage to gain complete control of the scientific museum for his evil plans? Cap fights for truth, justice

This serial has nothing to do with the original comic book Captain America but is still entertaining. Some people considered the star, Dick Purcell, to be pudgy but this is simply not so. He just had a more realistic body type than a male growth hormone guzzling freak like Sylvester Stallone. The men of Dick Purcell's era had survived the Great Depression and when they were hungry they ate meat and potatoes. Go take a look at your own gut sometime! Overall, Purcell made a pretty good serial hero, tough enough to do the job convincingly, a reasonably good actor, not wearing his angst and self doubt on his shirt sleeve like some modern sissy boy hero. While not as great as Buster Crabbe or Tom Tyler, he was better than Kirk Alyn (sorry, Kirk).

This serial has lots of excellent fight scenes and great cliff hangers. Also, there is a sequence where Captain America rides the Republic motorcycle, which was also seen in 'Spy Smasher.' The villain, Lionel Atwill, is probably one of the best serial villains, perhaps even better than Charles Middleton as Emperor Ming. Perhaps it would have been wiser to do this in the usual 12 chapters, as opposed to 15, but then again, if I minded wasting my time, why would I watch these old serials? Overall, this is a pretty good serial, and as such it has a higher value for escapist fun than most modern super-heroic cinema. One significant criticism I will make, however, is the inexplicable exclusion of all references to WWII. When it's WWII out there, and you have Captain America, a character created to fight WWII, yet the story has nothing to do with WWII, well, that is an awfully big elephant in the room. It would be akin, say, to a nation that spends $200 million a day for 10 years on a war, with the public having no reliable knowledge of the causes, progress, or effects of the war.