Captain America: Episode 1

 The Purple Death

 "You'll never get away with this!"

This is easily the first Marvel screen action of any sort, from a time long before Marvel as we know it in 1961. But Marvel was an offshoot of Martin Goodman's Timely Comics, and creators such as Bill Everett, Carl Burgos, Jack Kirby and Joe Simon had already created the Sub-Mariner, the first Human Torch, Captain America and more. This serial is the only screen relic of that strange proto-Marvel time which, perhaps, we never quite see in its own terms as opposed to what came later.

Yet neither, on the evidence of this episode, does this serial. Captain America wears the costume and is a hero, but there the similarities end. Here he is not Steve Rogers but Grant Gardner, district attorney in an unnamed city and conveniently close to the mayor and commissioner. There is no shield to be seen, but Cap is always toting a pistol, which is the most jarring thing.

However, even if this is Captain America in name and costume only, it's an impressive start. The Scarab, a scientifically hungry criminal, who mind controls people via poison to suicide(!), is a worthy foe, ably played by a monocled Lionel Atwill- and, in a brave departure from conention, we learn the villain's identity in the first episode. 

This is a strong opening episode wgich looks to be a superior example of the genre. So far, so good.

King Kong (1933)

“It was beauty killed the beast."

I’d seen this film before, of course- it’s King Kong- but not for many, many years. It’s an awesome tour de force of stop motion awesomeness, and I don’t care either how jerky it is or, indeed, how stilted the acting is. It’s a film all about the set pieces with Kong and the dinosaurs- so we get a stegosaurus, a plesiosaur and a, er, carnivorous long-necked sauropod that snatches a bloke from a tree and eats him. But even more it’s about Kong vs. the tyrannosaurus, Kong vs. the pterosaur, Kong vs. the snake, Kong going wild in New York and combing up the sparkly new Empire State Building, only to be finally shot down by some state of the art modern biplanes.

All that is what the film is about, and why you have to declare it a triumph, dodgy acting and pulp storytelling notwithstanding. I have to except Fay Wray from the “dodgy acting” comment, though- she’s natural, charismatic and splendidly flirtatious throughout. The other actors are generally outshone by the stop motion models, but that’s ok. It’s not about them.

Of course, there are things that raise an eyebrow, such as casting African Americans as the natives of an island south west of Sumatra, which would more likely be inhabited by Polynesians. There’s the vague racism of the Chinese crewman, not to mention the “savage native” trope but, hey, it’s 1933. There’s Jack’s chat up line “Say, I guess I love you”, which had me laughing out loud. And then there’s the fact that Denham essentially commits genicide upon the native just for the sake of his own glory. There they are, safe from the dangers of the island in their peninsula behind their wall, and then along comes Denham to destroy their only protection and leave them to probably all be eaten, including all those cute little kids.

It’s a bit slow, the acting is a bit stilted, but this is truly a special effect classic with some glorious set pieces that deserves its place in cinematic history.