Dick Tracy, detective

The first of four Dick Tracy films that were made by RKO Studios in the Forties is a straight action filled drama so unlike the live cartoon that Warren Beatty did and cast with a bunch of Hollywood names. Morgan Conway plays the square jawed detective with Anne Jeffreys as the eternally faithful and eternally exasperated Tess Truehart. If ever a man was wed to his job it was Dick Tracy as a homicide cop.

The villain here is Mike Mazurki excellently cast as Splitface and one look at him and you know why he's named that. He's responsible for a string of brutal stabbings and those scars he bares both give the city fright, but also make him impossible to trace since they were acquired in prison and render him unrecognizable. He's picked a cross section of citizens as his targets and while I think the viewer will figure it out before Conway puts it together, it's still a lot of fun.

A subsidiary villain in the film is Trevor Bardette playing a con man astrologer and hypnotist. Bardette has a real field day with the part.

Dick Tracy Detective is a fairly good B film from RKO Studios and the cast looks like they're having a good time.