CAPTAIN AMERICA

Dick Purcell as Captain America

CAPTAIN AMERICA (15-chapter Republic serial/1944). Directors: Elmer Clifton and John English. Colorized version. 

Dr. Maldor (Lionel Atwill of Lady in the Death House) is royally pissed. All he got out of a trip to some Mayan ruins with several associates is a lowly position at the Drummond Museum of Arts and Sciences. Maldor is not about to take this slight lying down, so he uses a drug called the purple death to force the other men to commit suicide and calls himself the Scarab.  And that's just for starters. Maldor has other nefarious plans in mind and has to continually keep dealing with District Attorney Grant Gardner (Dick Purcell of X Marks the Spot) and his alter ego Captain America, who is out to stop him whatever it takes. Maldor uses a "dynamic vibrator" to make an entire building collapse in chapter one, and then uses a stolen "electronic firebolt" to rob banks and the like. He even gets involved with a professor who can bring dead animals and even people back to life. Grant/Cap has a take no prisoners attitude, and it seems as if every other chapter one of Maldor's gunsels is being thrown to his death from a great height. 

Atwill, Gray, Pucell

Captain America is one of the very best Republic serials, with a constant stream of riotous action, fabulous fisticuffs, and some great cliffhangers, including the aforementioned collapsing building, a crushing tractor on a direct path to Cap's prone body, a guillotine that nearly beheads Grant's plucky associate Gail (Lorna Gray), and an ore car that is dropped down a shaft on top of our semi-conscious hero. In one scene Atwill whips John Hamilton when he won't talk, and puts Gail in a case where he intends to employ "mummifying" gas to turn her into a desiccated prune. Gail thinks of a clever way to trap Maldor, making up the name of a doctor which is the Scarab's real name spelt backwards. Purcell and Gray are suitably heroic, but Atwill walks off with the movie with his smooth, amused, and highly sinister turn as the utterly evil and sociopathic Maldor. John Davidson and George J. Lewis are Maldor's primary henchmen, and Jay Novello has a neat scene as a gunsel who comes to a bad end. Mort Glickman's score also works overtime to keep the excitement level up. Gray and Lewis  also appeared together in Federal Operator 99. NOTE: Even though the serial's hero has a different secret identity than in the comic books, this is the very first Marvel Comics movie adaptation.

Verdict: Lots of thrilling fun. ***1/4.