RICHARD E. ROCK

In late 1989 posters for a forthcoming Captain America film started appearing in American movie theatres. This was in the wake of the huge success of Tim Burton’s Batman, when studios were snapping up comic book properties like their lives (and bonuses!) depended on it. Properties such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Dick Tracy and… erm… The Punisher.

The promised Captain America adaptation, however, never materialised. Or at least not in theatres. It hit video stores in 1990 to a less than enthusiastic reception.

The story sees polio-stricken Steve Rogers given an experimental serum which transforms him into a strapping beefcake. He’s then squeezed into a star-spangled uniform, handed a shield and sent off to Europe to fight the Nazis. There, he comes face to deadly face with his Axis equivalent, the Red Skull. After finding himself inconveniently strapped to a rocket which crash lands in Alaska, freezing him in ice, he wakes up in 1989 to find that his old foe is still at large and has kidnapped the president!

Matt Salinger (son of JD) gives a solid performance as Steve Rogers and his costumed alter ego. Scott Paulin is satisfyingly diabolical as tragic villain, the Red Skull, and there are sterling supporting turns from Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox. Kim Gillingham shines in a dual role as Cap’s 1940s girlfriend Bernice and her daughter Sharon, who acts as Cap’s guide in the modern world.

I remember renting this film out on VHS at the time and really enjoying it. Alright, it’s no Superman: The Movie, but it had a good cast and, just as importantly, a good heart. For yes, this was a warm, likeable and well-intentioned live action version of the Nazi-punching comic book legend created by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon.

It was a darn sight better than the two bafflingly inept Captain America TV movies from the 1970s, anyway.

Ronny Cox, however, who played US president Tom Kimball, was not a fan. He famously said that it “…remains to this day the finest script I have ever read. How those guys messed that film up, I will never know”.

Well, surprise surprise, it turns out it was all down to studio interference. And therein lies a fascinating story…

The version that director Albert Pyun (who sadly passed away in 2022) originally presented to the studio – known as the ‘work print’ – was thoughtful, intelligent and poignant. Unlike the version that ended up hitting the video shelves, it was set in the present day (albeit 1989), with the WWII scenes presented in flashbacks. These glimpses into Cap’s past served to lend gravitas to the story and heighten the tragedy of him being a man out of time; an honest, decent figure in a more ambiguous age. He even says “Gee whiz!” in one scene.

But when the studio suits saw it they proclaimed it to be too clever by half and proceeded to wrestle it into chronological order, chopping approximately twenty minutes out of it in the process.

In 2011, following the release of Marvel Studio’s Captain America: The First Avenger (which I was an extra in!), Pyun went on tour with a director’s cut of his version, displaying a film that was closer to his original vision. Apparently, these events proved to be very popular, which demonstrated that there was still a lot of love out there for Pyun’s version.

However, even the version being screened at these events wasn’t the fabled ‘work print’ that Pyun had presented to the studio all those years ago. But this blu-ray edition, the one brought to us by Yippee Ki-Yay Mother Video, is.

Yes, you can finally see this movie in the form that the director intended. As a ‘work print’, it is a bit rough, slightly unpolished and retains quite a bit of its original graininess, but for me that only adds to the sense that this is a genuine film artifact. These are the things that make it special.

It’s a far more satisfying viewing experience than the original version. So much so that afterwards I found myself wanting to know more, so I got hold of an issue of Comics Scene magazine from the time that featured a report on the making of the movie (see above pic). That gave a very interesting insight into Pyun’s hopes for the film prior to its release, before the studio suits got their grubby little hands on it.

One fascinating detail that cropped up in the feature was that the intercontinental missile that Cap finds himself strapped to, the one aimed at the White House, was actually carrying a deadly virus. That was something never mentioned in the film. It was a just a rocket. Of course, this could just be down to misreporting.

Another fun fact was that despite around half the movie being set in Italy, it was actually filmed in Yugoslavia.

And one last curious detail that the mag highlighted was that Cap’s ears are rubber! Check out the pic and see for yourself.

On their website, the guys at Yippee Ki-Yay Mother Video say that they were proud to have Albert Pyun as a friend and are involved in a project to preserve his legacy. This work print edition of Pyun’s Captain America is a part of that project.

It’s a valuable undertaking and deserves support.

Had this original work print edition been the one originally released in 1990, it’s interesting to wonder what might have been. I have no doubt that its reception would have been a lot more enthusiastic and that it would have been far more successful. Perhaps we would even have been given sequels. That said, in the Comics Scene interview Pyun said that he wouldn’t be interested in directing any follow-ups.

But if the demand had been there… you never know. I guess this counts as another Marvel What If.

You can order your blu-ray copy of Captain America: the Albert Pyun Director’s Cut from https://yippeekiyaymothervideo.com.