There's a new Dick in town (Dick Tracy, Detective (DVD))

Member Name: Ailran

Product:	Dick Tracy, Detective (DVD)
Date:	01/06/09 (89 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice characterisation, fun and enjoyable in its own way.

Disadvantages: The mystery thriller aspect is non existant

Dick Tracy first appeared in 1931, the creation of cartoonist Chester Gould. The intelligent, hard nosed cop was a mainstay in newspapers from that date onwards written and drawn by Gould himself for close on 46 years, finally giving up having at least some involvement in his strip and hanging up his pen and pencil in 1977.

Tracy became a national icon and forged a career catching criminals in a whole host of media during the 30's and 40's. He had a long running radio career that spanned almost 15 years, starred in 4 movie serials between 1937 and 1941 and then 4 B-movies between 1945-47.
He made a brief return to prominence in 1990 when a spectacularly colourful movie starring Warren Beatty and Madonna was released, though it was pretty faithful to the character it did crash and burn quite spectacularly.

Tracy always had a couple of regular co-stars, his girlfriend Tess Trueheart and his partner Detective Pat Patton, who always helped and hindered him in his crook catching enterprise.


Dick Tracy, made in 1945, was the first of the four B-Movies to be made starring the popular crime busting detective.
The story starts with the savage murder of a young teacher on the street where she lived. Tracy and Patton are called to investigate and one of the first things they find is a blackmail note in her purse.
When the mayor gets a similar note the next day, in the same handwriting, he demands action.
A strange meeting with a hypnotist/professor while on the tail of a suspect gives Tracy some added information, if he believes the man, that there are 14 targets on the list of this blackmailing murderer. Can Tracy stop the killer before too many other people die?

Morgan Conway makes a very good Tracy. He has the All-American square jawed look that perfectly fits the newspaper strip image and has an aura about him that suits the detective.
Dick is joined by his 'gal' Tess Trueheart, played by Anne Jeffrey, his young ward/son/pal 'Junior' (it is never explained what his relationship is to Tracy but from the film I would guess he is his ward just like Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson (Robin)) and his partner Pat Patton, Lyle Latell, (who fills the equivalent role to Watson in Sherlock Holmes) as the main cast of the movie.
There are a couple of other cast members, including the professor, who get a little bit of screen time but other than Mike Mazurski, who plays the evil Splitface, none of them really appear enough to get a mention.
This is to be expected though as Dick Tracy relied upon its core cast and often bizarre criminals in its strip incarnation so the film is likely to follow the tried and tested formula for the characters on screen appearance.

Dick Tracy bucks a trend for a lot of these 1940s crime thrillers by being a lot brighter, lighting wise, than expected. There is a lot less of the dark corners and half lit face shots than you are accustomed to seeing.
This gives the whole movie a much lighter feeling overall, it feels much more like a Boston Blackie movie (one of my own favourite 40's B movie series) than the slightly more serious ones that were more prevalent at the time. While similar to pretty much every other series that was around at the same time the comedy side of Tracy, normally involving Patton, feels less forced and more natural than its competitors. Of course maybe this is down to the background of the characters and their history in the 'funny' pages.

It has to be said though that the lighter comedic side is much needed as the mystery side of Dick Tracy is just a tad lame. There are too many coincidences and way too much luck is involved with the good detective work. The uncovering of the villain and his plan is just way too simple, but on the other hand this is a 1940's 65 minute long story so I guess you cannot expect too much from it.
Thriller wise it fares slightly better as it has some good, tense moments and Mazurski does a very fine job of being threatening which certainly raises the tension a lot when he is on screen.

Still you will almost certainly be shaking your head at some of the situations and especially at how some of the clues are discovered but as a tight little thriller it just about works. As always with these old movies the limitations of early cinema are readily apparent. What is also evident though is that because of this the story is a lot stronger than you would expect, at least in a dialogue and characterisation sense.

Dick Tracy will never set your world on fire should you ever see it but it does make for an entertaining hour plus of mystery thrills. It fulfills all the B movie expectations of the era quite convincingly, and back then B movie meant a movie that was shown before the main feature (much like you have support bands at gigs) rather than the modern day meaning of being a substandard straight to DVD release.
Though it has to be said there are many better examples of the genre around and freely available to buy on DVD. If you are interested in this one it can be bought for a nominal fee on amazon, though oddly enough it is the one missing one in the Dick Tracy box set which contains the other 3 movies from the era.

Summary: An interesting curiosity which should have been much better