Dick Tracy (1937/I)

Directors:

Alan James
Ray Taylor

Writers:

Chester Gould (comic strip)
Morgan Cox (story) ...

Release Date:

20 February 1937 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Crime | Thriller

Tagline:

Based on cartoon strip by CHESTER GOULD (original poster)

Plot:

A master criminal called The Spider puts the famous detective's brother under a hypnotic spell and turns him against Dick. |

Plot Keywords:

Spider | Detective | Los Angeles | Stock Footage | Flashlight

Cast

Ralph Byrd	...	Dick Tracy
Kay Hughes	...	Gwen Andrews
Smiley Burnette	...	Mike McGurk
Lee Van Atta	...	Junior
John Picorri	...	Moloch
Carleton Young	...	Gordon Tracy, after
Fred Hamilton	...	Steve Lockwood
Francis X. Bushman	...	Chief Clive Anderson
John Dilson	...	Ellery Brewster [Chs. 1, 12]
Richard Beach	...	Gordon Tracy, before [Chs. 1, 12]
Wedgwood Nowell	...	H.T. Clayton [Chs. 8-9]
Theodore Lorch	...	Paterno [Chs. 1, 12]
Edwin Stanley	...	Walter Odette / The Spider
Harrison Greene	...	Durston Cloggerstein
Herbert Weber	...	Tony Martino, thug [Ch. 1]

Runtime:

290 min (15 episodes)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Victor High Fidelity Sound System)

Certification:

USA:Approved | USA:Passed (National Board of Review)

Company:

Republic Pictures

Trivia:

Chapters: 1. The Spider Strikes, 2. The Bridge of Terror, 3. The Fur Pirates, 4. Death Rides the Sky, 5. Brother Against Brother, 6. Dangerous Waters, 7. The Ghost Town Mystery, 8. Battle in the Clouds, 9. The Stratosphere Adventure, 10. The Gold Ship, 11. Harbor Pursuit, 12. The Trail of the Spider, 13. Fire Trap, 14. The Devil in White, 15. Brothers United.

Quotes:

[the Spider's henchmen have kidnapped Gordon, Dick Tracy's brother, and Moloch prepares to begin a mind-altering medical procedure]
The Spider: Hmm, his condition seems critical.
Moloch: What if should die?
The Spider: Then we will eliminate a very dangerous enemy.
Moloch: He won't die, but by means of this operation - a simple altering of certain glands - he will be unable to distinguish between right and wrong.
The Spider: In that event, he will be very useful to us, Moloch, very useful.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Witless Protection (2008)

Laughable - but it wasn't meant to be.

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.