Captain America (serial) - Production

Production

Captain America was budgeted at $182,623 although the final negative cost was $222,906 (a $40,283, or 22.1%, overspend). It was the most expensive of all Republic serials (as well as the most over budget). It was filmed between October 12th and November 24th 1943. The serial's production number was 1297. Captain America was written by seven of the top serial screenwriters, including Harry Fraser’s only work at Republic.

The Captain America costume was really grey, white and dark blue as these colours photographed better in black and white. The costume also lost the wings on the head, the pirate boots became high shoes and the chainmail became normal cloth. Miniature flags were added to the gloves and the belt buckle became a small shield.

Republic was notorious for making arbitrary changes in their adaptations. This occurred with Captain America more than most. Timely, the owner of Captain America, was unhappy with the omission of Steve Rogers, the lack of an army setting and his use of a gun. Republic responded in writing that the sample pages provided by Timely did not indicate that Captain America was a soldier called Steve Rogers, nor that he did not carry a revolver. They also noted that the serial was well into production by this point and they could not return to the original concept without expensive retakes and dubbing. Finally they pointed out that Republic was under no contractual obligation to do any of this.

The differences between the comic book and film versions of the title character in this serial are more extreme than with other Republic comic adaptations, such as Adventures of Captain Marvel and Spy Smasher. For example:

• His secret identity is District Attorney Grant Gardner rather than U.S. Army Private Steve Rogers.
• The "Super-Soldier Serum" origin is not used.
• His famous shield does not appear, replaced by a standard gun.
• Despite the fact that this serial was made in 1944, and Captain America regularly fought Nazis in the comics, the Nazis are not part of the story in any way.
• His sidekick, Bucky, does not appear.

The reason for the differences appears not to be arbitrary, but that the script for the serial originally featured an entirely different licensed lead character and it was only decided later to replace the original character with Captain America. Film historians Jim Harmon and Don Glut speculated that the script was originally written as a sequel to 1940's Mysterious Doctor Satan, which featured the masked hero The Copperhead. This character was himself a substitution for DC's Superman, after Republic's bid for that character's film rights lost to Paramount, who had a series of cartoon shorts made by the Fleischer Studios, and would later on acquire Republic, as well as release a feature-length Captain America film. This idea, however, is highly questionable considering that Republic owned the Copperhead character and could have done as they pleased with him without any licensing issues.

Republic previously had adapted Fawcett Comics characters (Captain Marvel and Spy Smasher). Due to the fact that the lead in Captain America is a crime-fighting district attorney aided by a female secretary who knows his identity, and that the serial includes a chapter entitled "The Scarlet Shroud" in which nothing scarlet appears, film restoration director Eric Stedman suggests that it is more likely that the script was originally developed to feature Fawcett's comic book hero Mr. Scarlet, secretly D.A. Brian Butler, whose comic book appearances had proved unpopular and who had actually disappeared from comic book covers and been relegated to being a backup feature between the time the serial was planned and the final film produced.

Writer Raymond William Stedman believes that the differences between the comic-book and film versions of Captain America were "for the better" as, for example, the hero did not have to sneak out of an army base every time he needed to change identities.