Dick Tracy

After watching all 15 episodes I have to tell you that this Dick Tracy seems to have paved the way for some of today's action heroes taken from the classic comics. The plot line is simply put - silly (a big crime ring cooperates with foregin goverments, wants to blackmail their own government, brainwashes people...). There seem to be hundreds of things going on and not a single case is solved. Tracy comes in, gets in a fight, the evil scheme is spoiled (case closed), bad guys escape, Dick follows them and get's in terrible danger. End of episode, right before Dick is about to die a horrible death. The next episode opens with a long revision of the previous story and Dick escapes unharmed. Meets with friends and the new problem arises. They investigate for a few minutes and then the same story all over. All right, the effects were awesome for the time when this was made and the ideas for how the villains planed to take charge were probably highly original back then (but were copied ever sense), still, not a single episode seems to have any depth. It was just jumping from one quick and shallow attempt by the Lame one to do whatever it was he wanted to do (there never seemed to be a grand plan behind his actions) to another. All in all, if they wouldn't repeat those previous episode scenes at the beginning of each episode and if the episodes took some time to develop a story it might have been good. Now (especially after watching it at once) as one long Dick Tracy session, I was really disappointed by the shallowness, but pleasantly surprised by the great effects.

Dick Tracy takes on a powerful criminal known as The Lame one (the irony.)

I have to be honest, I found this a real chore, I was gifted Dick Tracy returns on dvd, so sat through this one again to catch up, I found this such a long, drawn out slog.

The copy I had was very grainy, the recent viewing of it was much sharper, the picture had definitely been cleaned up somewhat, that did improve the experience a little.

Some of the dialogue is cringe worth, I know it's donkey's years old, but some of the moments are so agonisingly corny. I found the storyline a little odd, but it could definitely have been condensed down somewhat.

Some of the special effects look ok considering the year it was made, and some of the model shots hold up well.

Ralph Byrd would play the part of Dick Tracy for a long time, I think he got better in the part with time, I thought this was a bit of a rough start.

4/10.

Superb serial. The only one that matches it in quality is the first Flash Gordon. The production values are exceptional and eclipse many better known B movies. Ralph Byrd is perfectly cast in the title role. The only explanation I can think of for some viewers to rate this any lower than an "A" is that they just haven't seen very many serials. One of the few efforts in this line that actually has some atmospheric touches and, as another commenter has pointed out, the special effects are genuinely good.

Folks who don't really like serials are....well, they're folks who don't like serials (probably don't much like Christmas either). For those who do like serials, this is like a trip to the circus. Good action and WAY better than usual script and acting. As movies go, this probably only deserves a 7 but for a serial it deserves a perfect 10.

This is one of the better serials I've seen...especially of the less glitzy pre-1940 productions. There are few (in fact only one I think) cliffhanger ending that doesn't ring true (the kind where we see the action...and then the resolve shows different actions happening in the next episode). That puts it up real high in my book on just that point.

There isn't all that much care put to keeping the serial like the comic strip. Tracy became a g-man instead of a city police detective and gone are the maladjusted and malformed villains of his colorful rogues gallery. The Lame One, the villain of this chapterplay, doesn't compare to the grotesqueries of The Brow or Little Face.

Ralph Byrd is excellent as Tracy...in fact he IS Dick Tracy. Forget Morgan Conway's forgettable appearances in Dick Tracy's Dilemma and Dick Tracy Vs. Cueball (a horrible film)...and especially forget the primary color extravaganza that Warren Beatty put out. Ralph Byrd does them both in...stolid, straight forward and eager for action.

I would rate this serial right up there with other great chapterplays, like The Adventures of Captain Marvel, The Masked Marvel and the like.

"Dick Tracy" was the first of three serials based on Chester Gould's popular comic strip produced by Republic Pictures in the late 30s. The title character was played by Ralph Byrd in all three films.

In this installment Tracy and his assistants Steve Lockwood (Fred Hamilton), Junior (Lee Van Atta) and Mike McGurk (Smiley Burnette) are up against a terrorist organization known as the Spider Ring. The gang is led my a mysterious shadowy figure known only as the Lame One.

The gang tries among other things, to destroy the Golden Gate Bridge with a sonic sound wave machine, take over a gold mine and steal the plans for a new high speed aircraft. Tracy and his pals are kept busy trying to foil the gang's moves over 15 fast-paced chapters. Co-directors Ray Taylor and Alan James keep the action moving and provide us with plenty of excitement. There is a least one fight in every chapter. There is also the requisite "flashback" chapter which Republic used in most of their serials. The unmasking of the Lame One in Chapter 15 is almost anti-climatic. I challenge you to remember who the character was who turns out to be the Lame One.

The DVD which I purchased was produced by Marengo Films. The print from which it was duplicated was apparently borrowed from a collector so IT WAS NOT duplicated from the fuzzy public domain print that has been used for several years. The picture quality is very good and the sound crisp and clear.

Some interesting notes. The shooting down of a dirigible foreshadowed the real life Hindenberg disaster the following year. The high speed plane forecast the development of jet planes by some ten years. The Flying Wing used by the gang almost reminds one of the Stealth Bomber even though this was the 30s. And yes there's those great vintage 30s cars too. The running time of 290 minutes makes this I believe, the longest running serial of all time.

Francis X. Bushman who plays G-Man chief, Clive Anderson had been in films since 1911 and was one of the first matinee idols. He is probably best remembered for his role as Messala in the silent "Ben-Hur" (1927). Lee Van Atta and Smiley Burnette both appeared in the serial "Undersea Kingdom" (1936). Burnette of course would go on to be one of the best known "B" western sidekicks riding with Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and Charles Starrett (The Durango Kid).

Also in the cast in assorted roles, are Roy Barcroft as an air crewman on The Flying Wing, Milburn Morante as "Death Valley Johnny", I. Stanford Jolley as an intern and veteran silent heavy Walter Long in a bit. Future serial director William Witney served as a film editor on this project.

Followed by "Dick Tracy Returns" (1938) and "Dick Tracy's G-Men" (1939).