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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Captain America (1944)

Captain America (1944) (NTSC)

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Released 15-Apr-2011

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Cult None
Rating Rated E
Year Of Production 1944
Running Time 240:15 (Case: 244)
RSDL / Flipper No/No
Multi Disc Set (3)
Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 1,2,3,4,5,6 Directed By Elmer Clifton
John English
Studio
Distributor
Republic
Gryphon Entertainment
Starring Dick Purcell
Lorna Gray
Lionel Atwill
Charles Trowbridge
Russell Hicks
George J. Lewis
John Davidson
Norman Nesbitt
Frank Reicher
Hugh Sothern
Tom Chatterton
Case Amaray-Transparent-Dual
RPI $19.95 Music Mort Glickman


Video (NTSC) Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame Full Frame English Linear PCM 48/16 1.0 (1536Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio None
16x9 Enhancement No
Video Format 480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio 1.37:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles None Smoking Yes, it is the 1940s
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

     Captain America is a 15 part Republic Pictures serial dating from 1944. Because of budgetary constraints, however, the Captain America here bears no resemblance to the original Captain America comic character created by Timely Comics in 1941 and, not surprisingly, even less to the Marvel Comic’s character who reappeared in March 1964 in The Avengers # 4 before staring in his own comic series from April 1968. Accordingly, fans of the comic should not see this Republican serial with any preconceived ideas as Captain America’s entire back story as well as his name in the comic, Steve Rogers, has been changed.

     In this serial, Captain America (Dick Purcell) is District Attorney Grant Gardener, who dons his costume when crime waves threaten. The long first episode of the serial The Purple Death (this episode is approximately 25 minutes in length, the other episodes are all approximately 15 minutes, except for Episode 12 which stops abruptly after 7 minutes) sets up the premise. Members of the Mayan Ruins Expedition are dying in mysterious circumstances. In each case, they have traces of an exotic poison in their system, plus a scarab ornament nearby. The villain, called the Scarab, is Doctor Maldor (Lionel Atwill), who was also an expedition member but had been denied the recognition he felt he deserved by the other members (this is not a spoiler – he is revealed as the villain after 5 minutes, and as he also wears a monocle his villainy should be obvious!). As well as murdering people, Dr. Maldor is trying to obtain the plans for the “thermo-dynamic vibration engine”, a machine that harnesses light and sound and is capable of disintegrating any known material. Only Captain America and his assistant Gail Richards (Lorna Gray) stand in his way and when that scheme is foiled the Scarab uses various other machines, such as the “portable electronic fire bolt”, a robot controlled truck and the “life restoring machine” in his on-going attempts to achieve wealth, proper recognition of his merits and the defeat of Captain America.

     As a serial Captain America is good fun. The situations are pretty silly, the plot illogical and all over the place courtesy of seven credited scriptwriters as plot points or characters are discarded at random. Yet, these serials were not intended to be watched end to end but at weekly intervals when the action and cliff-hanging aspects were more important than coherent plotlines. Indeed, Captain America’s fight scenes in each episode courtesy of the stunt performers are energetic and athletic, although they become somewhat repetitive as Captain America fights two assailants, no more, in every fight. The tension and cliff-hanger elements are also fun, even if very contrived. The sets are cheap and the special effects, such as explosions or crashing buildings, quaint to say the least. Perhaps more troubling is the fact that there is no character explanation or back story about why the D.A. became Captain America and adopted the costume and disguise, which could have been useful given that the serial discards all this material from the original comic character. This means there is no motivation behind the hero’s actions, other than fighting crime, which might just as easily be done in his guise as D.A.; in fact, in a number of episodes the D.A. fights as the D.A., not Captain America.

     In addition, as a super-hero Captain America is very short changed: he has no special attributes or gadgets to help him along and often struggles to defeat two assailants. While Purcell is suitably stoic as the D.A., he looks overweight in the Captain America costume and in fact died of a massive heart attack shortly after this serial was made. Lionel Atwill as the evil Maldor is not bad (he is known for his role in Errol Flynn’s breakout film Captain Blood (1935)) and Lorna Gray as Gail is fine. Although she seems to get captured by the bad guys on numerous occasions and saved from death by Captain America at the last moment, she is by no means the simpering female and holds her own on many occasions.

     Much of the negativity levelled at Captain America, the serial, is from fans of the comics who point out, correctly, that the serial bears no resemblance to the comic hero even in his 1940s guise. However, if you are able to view the serial in its own right, and leave preconceptions behind, Captain America is a nice example of the 1940s serial; it flies along from event to event, is fast paced and exciting with some nice cliff-hanging sequences and stunts. Just don’t expect any logic or character development.

     Note: Episode 12 ends abruptly after 7:19, so there is approximately 8 minutes of footage missing. As the plot is illogical anyway, and each episode starts with a summarising caption while repeating the last sequence of the previous episode, this is not as disastrous to continuity as it could be.

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Transfer Quality

Video

     Captain America is an unrestored NTSC black and white print from 1944 presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, not16x9 enhanced. The original ratio was 1.37:1. The print shows evidence of damage but was in better shape than I had expected. Episode 1 commences with a trailer for The Return of Captain America, the title when the serial was reissued. The trailer is in worse condition than the episodes, so don’t despair too early.

     Over the 15 episodes the print is very soft, with variable brightness and contrast. Detail is poor but gets by. Scratches, hairs and dirt marks are frequent, but are not too distracting and I have seen worse in films considerably younger than 65 years old. There are occasional interlacing errors also, most noticeable when the Commissioner puts on his hat in the credit sequence. Perhaps a more distracting issue is the blacks, which show as patches in a whole variety of greys that waver across the frame. There are lots of examples; freeze the picture at 12:05 in Episode 1 for instance. Not surprisingly, shadow detail is indistinct to occasionally impossibly blurry. There are some frame jumps and the entire second half of Episode 12 is missing. However, I think these issues add, not detract, from the experience of viewing this old serial. Pristine it just would not be the same!

     There are no subtitles.

Video Ratings Summary
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     Audio is an English Linear PCM track at 1536 Kbps. The dialogue is occasionally difficult to hear and sometimes crackly, the effects flat but acceptable in something of this vintage. There is a slight hiss in places, crackles and a few drop outs but overall the audio is not too bad.

     The score by Mort Glickman with some stock music included is quite melodramatic and added to the tension . . . and the escapes.

     I did not notice any lip synchronization problems.

Audio Ratings Summary
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

     None

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

     This Australian version of Captain America is a Region 0 NTSC release. In Region 2 UK the serial has been released as three separate discs, each one containing 5 episodes; some are listed on Amazon UK at quite incredibly high prices. The US release has had mixed reviews, one complaint being that there are no Episode Chapters and the whole plays like an old VHS tape! It looks like our release is great value for money.

Summary

     Captain America is a 15 part Republic serial from 1944 that bears no resemblance to the original Captain America comic character. However, if you are able to view the serial in its own right, and leave preconceptions behind, Captain America is a nice example of the 1940s serial; fast paced and exciting, with some nice cliff-hanging sequences and stunts.

     The video is better than I expected from an unrestored NTSC print from 1944, the audio is adequate. There are no extras, but for a RPI of $19.95, this is good value for fans of 1940s serials.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ray Nyland (the bio is the thing)
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Review Equipment
DVDSony BDP-S350, using HDMI output
DisplayLG 42inch Hi-Def LCD. This display device has not been calibrated. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 1080p.
Audio DecoderNAD T737. This audio decoder/receiver has not been calibrated.
AmplificationNAD T737
SpeakersStudio Acoustics 5.1

Other Reviews NONE