Dick Tracy, detective

Better than I expected. The little flick's stylishly done, with atmospheric dark shadow, eye-catching set-ups and strong character close-ups. The storyline's sometimes hard to follow, but maybe that's just me. Then too, there's more to the mystery than just who baddie Splitface really is, such as the deadly significance of the number '14' or the apparently needless money payoffs. And catch that grabber opening, worthy of the best noir - (so why is a sexy woman walking down a dark street in the middle of the night, alone? Good thing it's only a movie.)

Sure, the production's still a cheap programmer, while the acting is just routine. But the flick does have quality background, namely RKO during that studio's noirish 1940's. So give it a try, even if you're not especially a Tracy fan. And even though they don't always blend, the good touches do add up.

(In Passing - Growing up in a small mountain town in the '40's, the Tracy cartoon strip really stimulated my imagination, what with sinister deformed types like Flat-Top, Pruneface, Littleface, and Breathless Mahoney, all pictured here in the opening credits. I guess I've never outgrown them, even as a now geezer. Anyway, thanks again to strip creator and screenwriter Chester Gould for his own contagious imagination that still shows even here.)

I suppose everyone has his or her own idea of what Dick Tracy should look like out of his cartoon realm. It seems from reading some of the comments that Morgan Conway was no one's idea.

I guess in my head I've always thought of John Larkin, the original Mike Carr on "Edge of Night" to be a good person for Tracy. Conway seems more of a character actor and less of a lead than I imagine Tracy. He has a pleasant smile, though.

Anne Jeffreys, now at 80+ and absolutely gorgeous to this day, was asked about the Dick Tracy series a few years ago, and she denied ever making any Dick Tracy movies. It wasn't that she disdained them, but they were turned out so quickly, she had no recollection of doing them.

This was a decent programmer but not much came through as far as personalities, except perhaps from Mike Mazurki as Splitface. The film moves along well. The subplot with Jane Greer seemed totally superfluous and never was resolved. Oh, well, soon enough, she would be on to better things.

It's kind of funny that the Warren Beatty Dick Tracy movie and Tim Burton's Batman movie were released so close to each other. Each movie tried valiantly to recreate the atmosphere of their respective comics with high impact visuals. However, Batman did a much better job carrying the comic's look and feel over to the big screen. The new Dick Tracy movie's wild colors and cheesy backdrops took away from the all-star cast that the producers put together. The original Dick Tracy movie featuring Morgan Conway is much more realistic and doesn't try as hard to be a live action comic strip and is the better movie for it.

First off, things must be said about Morgan Conway's portrayal of everyone's favorite detective. He bears a decent resemblance to his 2-D counterpart, but not one nearly as uncanny as Ralph Byrd's look. Nevertheless, Conway does a good job getting across Tracy's tough as nails yet sympathetic family-oriented character. You can't help but think that Conway looks and sounds too much like Humphrey Bogart to be Dick Tracy though.

Anne Jeffries and Mickey Kuhn as Tess and Junior do decent jobs as well. Pat Patton is a little deemphasized though, something that would remedied in future films. The scarred Splitface doesn't have the personality that some of the comic strip characters do, but he's passable as an original character. The whole movie doesn't try to be exactly like the comic as the 1960's Batman and the latest Dick Tracy movie did later. Rather, it's more true-to-life with some subtle hints of its comic roots. It keeps the stereotypical police department, the daring feats of courage by the heroes and the rogues gallery of characters from the strip while giving Dick Tracy's world a more real feel. That real-world feel puts this movie a cut above the 1990 movie.

If you're expecting MALTESE FALCON you're in the wrong place. This first in the RKO Dick Tracy movies based on Chester Gould's hardboiled policeman is very faithful to the source material and a LOT of fun.

The cast is well chosen and Morgan Conway looks like he stepped right off the comics page.

What is unexpected is the inky black noirish camera work, something that was very rare for a B-picture. The entire series was entertaining, with Ralph Byrd replacing Conway for the third and fourth installments, and the two earliest entries were geared towards an adult audience as shown in the violence depicted.

Pull the stick out of your crack, sit back and enjoy some very entertaining little films from a more innocent time, when our good guys were someone to look up to.

DICK TRACY has the film noir look of the '40s and some interesting plot devices involving a slasher out for revenge. With its brief running time and low-budget values, it's strictly the kind of fare that used to play the lower half of double bills for the Saturday matinee crowds.

Still, it's not bad as far as these B-pics go (some excellent B&W photography)--but MORGAN CONWAY is nobody's idea of what the famous sleuth should look like. RALPH BYRD was a much better choice in those Tracy serials--he must have been busy when they got to making this one. Anne Jeffreys is pert and pretty as Tess but has little to do. (Did Hollywood ever give her a substantial role?) Little Mickey Kuhn (he was Beau Wilkes in GWTW and the young man Vivien Leigh flirted with in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE) is delightful as the boy detective who helps solve the case.

For the villain of the piece, we have Mike Mazurki wearing a scar that looks like a decent make-up job and hulking in the shadows whenever the next murder takes place.

Not bad, and certainly one of the better entries in the DICK TRACY films of the '40s--but what it needed was square-jawed RALPH BYRD in the title role.

Summing up: a good programmer.