YouTube Theatre: Pistol-Packin' Cap!

It's the long 4th of July holiday weekend, and that can mean only one thing:  Lazy Blogging! 

Sure, I'll have something of substance for you on Tuesday, but for today, I think I'll put the burgers on the grill and let this trailer for Republic's Return of Captain America serial (1944) entertain you while simultaneously whipping you up into a patriotic frenzy.

That is, as patriotic a frenzy as a chubby, pistol-packing Captain America with no shield or mask-wings, who isn't Steve Rogers but "Grant Gardner, crusading District Attorney" can whip you into.

Comments

[cinephile]

Great clip! Odd, though, about the change in the character's origin-- one would think, during the war, that a "super-soldier" character would be more popular than a DA (which seems more like a 30s archetype), and would be right in line with a lot of the military-themed flagwavers H'wood was turning out in that period. You probably know more about the backstory to this serial than I-- was there an issue with getting the specific narrative rights? Budget concerns? etc?

[Mark Engblom]

I know virtually nothing about the serial, though my curiosity will probably lead me to track it down and watch it at some point.

We all know about Hollywood's tendency to insist they know something the comic book people don't by introducing nonsensical changes to the narrative, and you can see it at work way back on the serials of the 1940's. I personally wouldn't think keeping the story closer to Cap's comic book origin wouldn't have been any more expensive than what they went with. In fact, at the beginning of the clip, you can see some sort of equipment-filled lab, which would have been an acceptable setting for the super-soldier serum to be administered, Prof. Reinstein's assassination, etc.

The craziest omission was Cap's shield. I'd love to find out the reasoning (or lack thereof) behind that decision. It would have been a great visual and could have made the decidedly pudgy and dorky-looking Cap marginally easier on the eyes.