Dick Tracy (1945)

Touches You

Sorry, this movie sucks

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Dick is faced with a series of brutal murders in which the victims, all from different social and economic backgrounds, are viciously slashed to pieces. Suspects abound but Tracy, getting a clue that there will be fifteen murders in all, must find the common thread among the victims before more are killed. These RKO B pictures are really good. I've very surprised that given Hollywood's lack of creativity these days that no one is developing a Dick Tracy series. The movie will not change your life, but it's satisfying and a decent watch.

A psychotic killer by the name of "Splitface" (Mike Masurki) is on the loose and is killing people of different backgrounds. What's even stranger is that extortion notes are found on the victims but the people who pay are still killed anyway. Even the mayor is being threatened and "Dick Tracy" (Morgan Conway) is being pressured to find the killer as soon as possible. Now, even though this is a rather short film (barely over an hour long) there is enough mystery and action to keep a person's attention throughout. Even so, the script was a little corny at times and the performances of all concerned were average at best. Other than that there really isn't too much to be said about this movie except that it was filmed in black and white and some viewers may not like it because they don't realize how popular Dick Tracy was back in the day. Still, it was an okay film and worth what little time was spent watching it.

I put this in the same category with the other vaguely interesting B movies I watch when I want to go to bed soon. At least with this one I could tell who was the villain and what was going on--I get irritated with detective movies like Charlie Chan where even when I'm told whodunit I still don't know who that was because the actors look so similar. The plot was very simple. It gave me plenty of opportunity to look around, as it were, and observe other things. Don't you just love a good fall through a skylight? How about a creepy mortician? A sassy boy detective? A sassy and beautiful woman? I only have a few beefs with this movie. First, Dick was incredibly slow on the uptake about a jury being targeted, and I agree with another reviewer that anybody would remember a death threat. I had to look up online who Junior was because the movie expected us to know. I suppose Tess did more than just hang around in evening dress waiting for a meal out but we weren't told if she were independently wealthy or still working at the photography business that was in the comics. And why didn't Junior or Tess make the slightest attempt to escape captivity? We could have had a blazing row if they had used the kerosene lamp to good effect, but no. Very disappointingly nothing was burned down so Dick could rescue them at the last second from the inferno. Opportunity wasted. Perhaps it cost too much but they left the kerosene lamp in the scene anyway. Finally, Tess should have had a really intelligent and cutting last scene to make us feel better for her being so ignored and disrespected. That would have given Dick the opportunity to show us why she fell in love with him. Instead, we are left with the question of why in the world she puts up with this jerk and if they never spend any time together, why do they bother? We needed some reason to think he wasn't really so bad, that in some part of his soul he loved her dearly--or at all. What we got was the impression that her real relationship was with Junior and that her role was already mother and not wife. I hope they get that worked out before the wedding. I understand their relationship in the comics moved at glacial speed. Junior might be in college by then and they can at least be alone together when Dick manages to come home once in a while. I read that in the comics they had kids. Heaven knows how!

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.