This is another entry in my Complete Score Breakdown Series, focusing on the complete scores to films that have had abbreviated previous releases or have gone unreleased.
Today we are looking at Dick Tracy (1990) by Danny Elfman.
I truly love the 1990 film Dick Tracy; it is my favorite comic book film ever made. Having said that, believe it or not, I haven’t seen it that many times, and I hadn’t seen it in a long time. I couldn’t even remember the score terribly well! I thought that since I hadn’t done any Danny Elfman scores for my Complete Score Breakdown Series and I hadn’t seen the film in awhile and wanted to revisit the score, I should look into it.
Unfortunately, Dick Tracy was not a fun CSB to do. A lot of my runtimes will, in this rare case, be estimations. The CD itself, which runs 34min 45 sec, seems to have at least two tracks that were unused in the film: at least one version of “Tess’ Theme” and “Crime Spree” (the latter of which may have been replaced by the Sondheim song “Back in Business”). Many CD tracks seemed to be heavily edited for the film and there appeared to be a few alternate film versions of CD tracks. Again, I’m not terribly familiar with the CD, and many, many of the film score cues are so short, it is possible that CD tracks are combinations/suites of film score cues and I couldn’t crack the code, in which case my estimations may be off, but I did my best!
I will put my best foot forward in presenting the score as heard in film and try to notate when a CD track was edited or featured an alternate film version. Sometimes I became so frustrated I left out tiny sections of score from the total film score runtime; for example, during the section towards the end of the film when the film continually intercuts between the rooftops, Tess tied up, Tracy’s rescue attempt, Big Boy dining in the club, and Breathless singing, the music starts and stops repeatedly and toggles back and forth between the club song -- 5 seconds of score, 5 seconds of song, 10 seconds of score, 5 seconds of song, score, song, sco--, son--, ad infinitum. A lot of the movie is just quick snippets of score.
If many mistakes were made in estimating film score version vs. CD score version, forgive me in advance…
Despite all of the disjointed film listening experience and lack of any real evolving length of cues in the film (except towards the end), I think this is one of Elfman’s finest scores, definitely one of my favorites, and nearly holds up next to classics like Batman (if only it weren’t such a disjointed stop-and start affair within the film). It is so rich, so detailed, so quirkily and creatively orchestrated with great themes and textures so specific to the visuals and traits of the distinct world of Dick Tracy. Elfman was the perfect composer for this gig.
CURRENT CD RELEASE RUNTIME: 34min 45sec COMPLETE SCORE RUNTIME (AS HEARD IN FILM): 33min 00sec DEPUTY RILEY’S ESTIMATED GUESS AT ALL KNOWN ORIGINAL MUSIC WRITTEN FOR THE FILM (INCLUDING UNEDITED CD TRACKS, UNUSED TRACKS, AND/OR ALTERNATE FILM VERSIONS, WITH NO IDENTICAL DUPLICATION REGARDING FILM TRACKS & CD TRACKS): 44min 15sec
DEPUTY RILEY’S ESTIMATED GUESS AT THE UNRELEASED SCORE RUNTIME: approximately 10 min. (?)
Complete Score Cue Titles and Cue Times (unreleased cues named by me for the sake of identification):
+ – previously unreleased (or includes previously unreleased material) -- please note, I did not include alternate edited film versions as previously unreleased in this CSB as I was not completely certain how much of the cues were alternate and how much were identical to CD tracks.
1. Main Titles (1:39) – (alternate edited film version) 2. Full House (0:34) + 3. A Little Trouble Downtown (0:20) + 4. Hiya, Lips (0:34) + 5. After the Kid (1:19) – (alternate edited film version) 6. No Pals In This Business (0:53) + 7. Call It In (0:13) + 8. Big Boy Takes Over (0:10) + 9. Earrings and Walnuts (0:38) + 10. Gimme a Call… (0:15) + 11. Duty and Love (1:03) + 12. Breathless’ Theme (0:37) – (edited from CD track) 13. Spaldoni’s Fiery Exit (1:10) + 14. Tracy Abducted (0:29) + 15. Slimy D.A. (1:03) – (alternate edited film version) 16. Breathless Kiss (0:27) + 17. Meet the Blank (1:28) 18. On the Rocks with Tess (1:10) + 19. Blank Saves Tracy (0:24) + 20. Tracy’s Faithful (1:00) + 21. Blank Gets the Goods (1:20) – (edited CD track) 22. Tracy to Greenhouse (0:35) + 23. Flower Power (0:47) + 24. Framed (1:28) + 25. Change of Plans (1:14) + 26. Anonymous Tip (0:30) + 27. Detective Deduction (0:28) + 28. City View (0:16) + 29. Skylight (1:00) + 30. Surrounded (0:50) + 31. The Chase (2:24) – (edited from CD track) 32. Showdown / Reunited (4:50) 33. Finale (0:57)
Current CD Release Track Titles and Track Times:
1. Main Titles (3:37) – (CD version) 2. After the Kid (1:45) – (CD version) 3. Crime Spree (1:54) – (unused in film) 4. Breathless’ Theme (2:13) 5. Big Boy / Bad Boys (2:12) – (unused? CD version?) 6. Tess’ Theme (1:09) – (this [or the other] version possibly unused in film) 7. Slimy D.A. (1:42) – (CD version) 8. Breathless Comes On (2:53) – (unused?) 9. Meet the Blank (1:43) 10. The Story Unfolds (1:59) – (unused? CD version?) 11. Blank Gets the Goods (2:25) 12. Rooftops (2:03) – (CD version) 13. Tess’ Theme (Reprise) (1:17) 14. The Chase (2:58) 15. Showdown / Reunited (4:07) 16. The Finale (0:59)
Thanks for reading, not my finest CSB hour, see you next time!
Of note: Silvestri said in an interview he had started work on the score. He also said at the time he had not had any rejected scores, so if he recorded for this film, it would mark his first rejected score.
Of note: Silvestri said in an interview he had started work on the score. He also said at the time he had had not rejected scores, so if he recorded for this film, it would mark his first rejected score.
That's very interesting! I cannot imagine what a Silvestri Dick Tracy would sound like...but I'm glad Elfman got the gig. Heaven knows Silvestri's had his share of rejected scores, the poor soul. Suffice it to say he's made up for it in other ways on other projects though!
I too adore this film and I've always considered Elfman's score to be one of his best. It's also just magnificently orchestrated & performed music - it's like "Batman" by the way of George Gershwin and Max Steiner. It's so, so wonderful.
From what I've gathered over the years it was a difficult score to write and perform, and from what I understand Warren Beatty had it (or portions of it) re-recorded over and over and over again, so there are likely alternate or deleted cues that nobody but the filmmakers have heard.
Never heard about Silvestri being involved. My guess is that he was hired because of his work on "Roger Rabbit," which was a similar kind of neo-"Old Hollywood" production.
