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Speaking into his wrist watch while everyone assumes (correctly) that he's a weirdo.
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I like the 1990 movie a lot. But I never read the comics.
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Posted: |
Sep 26, 2021 - 11:29 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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My first exposure to Dick Tracy came from glancing at the comic in our Sunday paper. Later, God help me, I watched the 1960-61 animated cartoon series. 130 five-minute cartoons were designed and packaged for syndication, usually intended for local children's shows, which is where I saw them, during our local station's after-school "Adventure Theater."
The Dick Tracy character barely appeared in those cartoons. The producers must have figured that kids of the '60s had no interest in a square-jawed crime fighter created in the 1930s. So instead, Tracy employed a series of subordinates to fight crime each week. Each cartoon started with Tracy being assigned a case and then saying the exact same thing: "Okay, Chief, I'll get on it right away!" He then calls up one of his detectives on his two-way wrist radio and dispatches them to the crime scene. In those non-politically-correct days, the cartoons featured Asian detective "Joe Jitsu," Hispanic detective "GoGo Gomez," English detective "Hemlock Holmes and The Retouchables," and fat Irish beat cop "Heap O'Callory." It was classic bait and switch--a Tracy cartoon series without Dick Tracy.
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Posted: |
Sep 27, 2021 - 1:12 PM
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By: |
filmusicnow
(Member)
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My first exposure to Dick Tracy came from glancing at the comic in our Sunday paper. Later, God help me, I watched the 1960-61 animated cartoon series. 130 five-minute cartoons were designed and packaged for syndication, usually intended for local children's shows, which is where I saw them, during our local station's after-school "Adventure Theater."
The Dick Tracy character barely appeared in those cartoons. The producers must have figured that kids of the '60s had no interest in a square-jawed crime fighter created in the 1930s. So instead, Tracy employed a series of subordinates to fight crime each week. Each cartoon started with Tracy being assigned a case and then saying the exact same thing: "Okay, Chief, I'll get on it right away!" He then calls up one of his detectives on his two-way wrist radio and dispatches them to the crime scene. In those non-politically-correct days, the cartoons featured Asian detective "Joe Jitsu," Hispanic detective "GoGo Gomez," English detective "Hemlock Holmes and The Retouchables," and fat Irish beat cop "Heap O'Callory." It was classic bait and switch--a Tracy cartoon series without Dick Tracy.
I was never fond of the U.P.A. produced animated series, instead I preferred the animated segments that was on "Archie's T.V. Funnies" that was produced by Filmation.
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I followed the newspaper strip pretty regularly when I was growing up. I started reading it after Max Allan Collins took over the strip. Dick Tracy was one of my Dad's favorites, so the strips were a fun way to bond with him. I haven't read many of the Chester Gould strips, and it would be fun to check them out some day. I also enjoyed the Warren Beatty movie. Haven't thought much about the character in years though, so I guess that makes me a casual fan at best.
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I have fond memories of the strip in the newspaper, and Boris Karloff as Gruesome in one of the movies (that may not be right, but I'm sticking to it). I've looked at the Fantagraphics collections, but never picked one up. I also have very vague memories of the 60's cartoon - which I recently saw somewhere online, maybe Amazon Prime. Utterly unwatchable.
The 1990 movie did not work for me though it had its heart in the right place and was visually fun. But the music is great - Danny Elfman meets Gershwin. And the Kyle Baker three-issue series of comics tied to the movie is utterly fantastic - I just bought it a few months ago, wish I hadn't missed it when it came out. (Kyle Baker can do no wrong!)
For me, the radio watch, the Man from U.N.C.L.E. pen communicator, and of course the Star Trek Communicator, are my very favorite imaginary gadgets in the history of imaginary gadgets.
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Posted: |
Sep 28, 2021 - 12:05 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Dick Tracy made his film debut in "Dick Tracy" (1937), a 15-chapter movie serial by Republic Pictures starring Ralph Byrd. In this serial, Dick Tracy is a G-Man (FBI) in San Francisco rather than a Midwestern city police detective as in the comic strip. Most of the Dick Tracy supporting cast and rogues gallery were also dropped and new, original characters used instead (for instance the characters of Tracy's girlfriend Gwen Andrews and his detective partner Mike McGurk were stand-ins for Tess Trueheart and Pat Patton respectively). Dick Tracy creator Chester Gould approved the script despite these changes.
In the story, a master criminal called The Spider orders his minion, Dr. Moloch (John Picorri), to perform a brain operation on Tracy's brother Gordon to turn him evil, making him secretly part of the Spider Ring and so turning brother against brother. The brother is played by Richard Beach before he is placed under the spell, and by Carleton Young afterwards.
The production cost $127,640, the most expensive Republic serial up to that time. The serial received a novelization from Big Little Books, entitled "Dick Tracy and the Spider Gang." The pages alternate between text and black-and-white photos from the serial.
The background comic art (panels) shown on most of the original posters for this serial came from the Sunday "Dick Tracy" comic page of December 6, 1936.
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Speaking into his wrist watch while everyone assumes (correctly) that he's a weirdo.
Speaking into a wrist watch is actually a totally normal behavior nowadays.
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Not sure I'm a fan, necessarily, but I did have a few of the comics as a kid (I was a comics buff). The film adaptation was quite good, much better than the campy adaptation my favourite comic, The Phantom, which came a few years later (I had waited for a film adaptation of this for years and years).
THE PHANTOM... now that's a comic classic. I remember the very atmospheric drawings and stories... have not read this since childhood, but feel now like revisiting it.
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My favorite is "Dick Tracy in Bb"!
I might be the only person here who knows what this is. Besides you, Raymond.
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Posted: |
Sep 29, 2021 - 12:50 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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The 1937 "Dick Tracy" serial proved to be very popular, so in 1938, Republic released the sequel "Dick Tracy Returns", with Ralph Byrd reprising his role as the title character. In this serial, Tracy tries to capture the gang of "Pa Stark" (Charles Middleton) and his five criminal sons--"Champ" (John Merton), "Trigger" (Raphael Bennett), "Dude" (Jack Roberts), "The Kid" (Ned Glass), and "Slasher" (Jack Ingram).
This serial cost $171,000 to produce, a record high for a Republic serial. In order to save on costs (and to allow audiences who may not have seen every chapter to catch up), serials often devoted one or more episodes to a recap of previous episodes. In "Dick Tracy Returns," episodes 9 and 13 are recap episodes, using extensive clips of prior episodes.
Dick Tracy creator Chester Gould had originally signed a contract with Republic allowing them to produce a "series or serial" from his works. Republic took this ambiguous language to mean that they were entitled to produce a series of films or serials for the single payment afforded Gould by that contract. So, Gould received no further payments from Republic for the continued use of the Dick Tracy character.
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My favorite is "Dick Tracy in Bb"!
I might be the only person here who knows what this is. Besides you, Raymond.
Well, I know now, thanks to Google, not to you lot.
Would it kill you to share a link? 
https://www.dicktracymuseum.com/dick-tracy-in-bflat
It didn't kill me. Yet....
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Posted: |
Sep 29, 2021 - 2:30 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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The Dick Tracy serials continued to be popular, and a third was produced for 1939 release--"Dick Tracy's G-Men". The story found international spy "Nicolas Zarnoff" (Irving Pichel) in the employ of "The Three Powers" (presumably a fictionalized reference to the Axis powers). He is captured by Dick Tracy (Ralph Byrd) at the start of the serial, tried and sentenced to death. However, through the use of a rare drug embedded by his agents in the evening newspaper, he escapes from the gas chamber. His men pick up his "corpse" by ambushing the hearse and administering another counter-drug. He continues his espionage plans, while taking the opportunity of revenge on Tracy.
Dick Tracy's girlfriend, "Gwen Andrews," was played by Kay Hughes in the first serial and by Lynn Roberts in the second. In this third serial, she was played by Phylis Isley. Four years later, Phylis Isley would win an Academy Award for best actress of 1943 for THE SONG OF BERNADETTE, under the screen name Jennifer Jones.
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