BelSports
This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
Edison Witt
The first must-see film of the year.
Scarlet
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
oscar-35
*Spoiler/plot- Captain America, 1944. A major American city is plagued by a crime wave. And it's up to the city attorney to become a crime fighter.*Special Stars- Dick Purcell, Lorna Gray, John Hamilton, Lionel Atwill.*Theme- When the city has a crime wave hit, unknown crime fighters rise to combat it.*Trivia/location/goofs- B & W, 12 part theatrical weekly serials. You will notice that the lead role is not a super hero, just a city attorney civil servant that rides a Harley Davison motorbike.*Emotion- Full of action and enjoyable in it's many part theatrical serial of the era.*Based On- VERY loosely based on the Marvel comic character.
Matti-Man
Captain America was far and away my favourite hero when I was growing up in the 1960s. A lot of this was do do with artist Jack Kirby's dynamic drawings of Cap in the Marvel Comic Tales of Suspense. I especially enjoyed the war-time setting of the comics and the hero's battles with his arch-nemesis The Red Skull. When CA joined the Avengers, I bought every one of those comics, too. All this is by way of saying I was (and am) a major fan of the character.It wasn't until years later, as I was getting more into movies and hunting down classic Hollywood serials, that I got to see CAPTAIN America.Now, this serial has taken a lot of stick on this site for not following the comics ... but I have less of a problem with this than some people here.Yes, the plot is a bit repetitive - but folks, it's a serial. You're supposed to watch it one episode a week. It's going to look a bit cheap, because the budget was tiny. It's going to have second-grade actors, because A-listers would never agree to appear in serials. This was where the studio tested out new talent and put old actors (and stunt men) out to pasture.As serials go, it's one of the better ones. I was astonished at just how much the stunt men in this throw themselves into the fight scenes. How these guys weren't hurt, I'll never know. The direction from John English (who, incidentally WAS English and was responsible for all the best serials of the period) it very slick and Lionel Atwill (one of the great b-movie actors) is excellent as the villain - though he does seem to forget his lines from time to time.All in all, one of the better serials of the 1940s - great fun if you fast-forward past the lengthy episode recaps. And I don't mind a bit if it doesn't follow the comics exactly. What comic book adaptation does? This serial is quite enjoyable enough to stand on its own terms.
flapdoodle64
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.
bwray
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
