The tragic story of the first Captain America

‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ is heading to cinemas on 26 March.

Marvel’s sequel to ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’ picks up the story after the events of ‘The Avengers’, with Cap still coming to terms with 21st century life after being frozen in ice for over 70 years.

['Captain America: The Winter Soldier' post-credit sequences revealed]

This will be Chris Evan’s third full outing as Steve Rogers AKA Captain America, the sparrow-chested recruit turned super-soldier, but did you know Marvel’s patriotic hero first made his screen debut way back in 1944?

Many of us know about the cult, campy, 1990 version which features Matt Salinger, son of author J.D. Salinger, donning the blue tights, but we wager few remember Dick Purcell as the first big-screen Cap.

Bringing Captain America to the screen
Captain America was created in 1941 by pioneering comic creators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby as a reaction to the rise of Nazi Germany in Europe.

He first appeared in 'Captain America Comics #1’ on Timely Comics, the publishing company that would evolve into Marvel during the 1960s, with the cover showing Cap chinning Adolf Hitler with a mean right hook.

The unashamedly patriotic hero proved to be a big hit in the States during the war and so a black and white serial was put into production by Republic, an independent studio that specialized in B-movies, westerns, and mystery serials.

The studio, which helped develop the careers of John Wayne, Roy Rogers, and John Ford, had already had some success with serialized superhero tales thanks to ‘Adventures of Captain Marvel’, so ‘Captain America’ seemed a safe bet.

However, the ‘Poverty Row’ studio was renowned for cutting corners, and its ‘Captain America’ serial was no different.

The changes made to Captain America
The 1944 ‘Captain America’ is a very different proposition to the polished multi-million dollar production that will be coming to cinemas later this month. Not just in terms of budget and scale, but also in Cap’s character.

It has been speculated that the script for ‘Captain America’ began life as a serial featuring another masked mystery man, Mr. Scarlet - a crime-fighting District Attorney comic character known as Brian Butler. Mr. Scarlet's popularity had taken a dive between the serial being green-lit and being produced, so Captain America was parachuted in to act as the proxy hero.

If this theory is correct, it would help explain why this Captain America’s origin is so radically different to the comic.

[Chris Evans to take a break from acting after Marvel deal expires]

Captain’s alter-ego is District Attorney Grant Gardner, rather than US Army private Steve Rogers, and the super-soldier serum origin is not mentioned at all, neither his is comic side-kick Bucky.

Cap’s iconic shield is missing too, with Gardner opting for a pistol as his weapon of choice instead, and he is stuck fighting crime rather than the Nazis as his comic counterpart was famous for.

Republic took liberties with his iconic costume too. The A on his cowl remained, but the wings were gone, as were his famous pirate-style red boots.

His costume was actually grey, white, and dark blue as these photographed better in black and white than the famous red, white, and blue of Cap’s attire.

The Purple Death
15 installments of ‘Captain America’ were produced in late 1943 for a cost of $222,906 (£134k), Republic’s costliest serial ever.

Dick Purcell, a Connecticut-born actor, was drafted in to play Captain America/Grant Gardner, despite being (as you can see from our clip above) of average built, even verging on overweight.

Captain America battles The Scarab, a mysterious villain killing people using a poison known as the “Purple Death”, which causes its victim to commit suicide. The villain seeks two inventions known as the Dynamic Vibrator and Electronic Firebolt, which despite their dubious names, are actually weapons of mass destruction before we’d even invented the phrase.

[Andrew Garfield wants Spider-Man to join The Avengers]

The serial proved to popular with audiences and is considered to be one of the better superhero serials of its time, however one person who would not be around to enjoy the commercial success of the serial was Cap himself.

Dick Purcell died from a heart attack in the locker room of a Los Angeles country club after playing a round of golf on 10 April, 1944 just weeks after filming had wrapped.

He was just 35.

It’s been suggested that the physical strain of filming ‘Captain America’ had proved to be too much for Purcell, who unlike the iconic superhero himself, will forever be frozen in 1944.

The serial had a theatrical re-release under the name of ‘Return of Captain America’ in 1953 and there was even a nice nod to the character's black & white roots during the 'Star Spangled Man’ musical sequence in ‘The First Avenger’.

The 1944 outing may not be Captain America’s finest hour, but it still stands as the first theatrical release featuring a Marvel character.

The next would come in 1986 with George Lucas’ ill-fated ‘Howard The Duck’, but that’s a story for another time.

'Captain America: The Winter Soldier' is out in UK cinemas 26 March, 2014.