Dick Tracy, detective

If you're expecting MALTESE FALCON you're in the wrong place. This first in the RKO Dick Tracy movies based on Chester Gould's hardboiled policeman is very faithful to the source material and a LOT of fun.

The cast is well chosen and Morgan Conway looks like he stepped right off the comics page.

What is unexpected is the inky black noirish camera work, something that was very rare for a B-picture. The entire series was entertaining, with Ralph Byrd replacing Conway for the third and fourth installments, and the two earliest entries were geared towards an adult audience as shown in the violence depicted.

Pull the stick out of your crack, sit back and enjoy some very entertaining little films from a more innocent time, when our good guys were someone to look up to.

The first installment in RKO's short Dick Tracy series of films in the 1940s. This one sees Tracy (Morgan Conway) working on a case involving a string of murders committed by Splitface (Mike Mazurki). This series was churned out quickly and cheaply. So don't expect an "A" production from them. That being said, it's a thoroughly enjoyable way to spend an hour. Fast-paced, fun detective stories with action and some comedy. Mike Mazurki is a great villain. Conway does fine as Tracy. Lyle Latell plays Tracy's bumbling sidekick Pat Patton. He's the movie's comic relief. Anne Jeffreys plays his Tracy's girlfriend Tess Trueheart. Also an early role for Jane Greer. Give it a shot and I'm sure you'll find it an enjoyable time-killer.

DICK TRACY has the film noir look of the '40s and some interesting plot devices involving a slasher out for revenge. With its brief running time and low-budget values, it's strictly the kind of fare that used to play the lower half of double bills for the Saturday matinee crowds.

Still, it's not bad as far as these B-pics go (some excellent B&W photography)--but MORGAN CONWAY is nobody's idea of what the famous sleuth should look like. RALPH BYRD was a much better choice in those Tracy serials--he must have been busy when they got to making this one. Anne Jeffreys is pert and pretty as Tess but has little to do. (Did Hollywood ever give her a substantial role?) Little Mickey Kuhn (he was Beau Wilkes in GWTW and the young man Vivien Leigh flirted with in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE) is delightful as the boy detective who helps solve the case.

For the villain of the piece, we have Mike Mazurki wearing a scar that looks like a decent make-up job and hulking in the shadows whenever the next murder takes place.

Not bad, and certainly one of the better entries in the DICK TRACY films of the '40s--but what it needed was square-jawed RALPH BYRD in the title role.

Summing up: a good programmer.

Don't expect elaborate make-up effects or musical numbers from this installment in the original Dick Tray series, and you won't be disappointed. The plot is a whole lot goofier and creepier than Warren Beatty's version and the villains are just as perverse. Tracy's refreshingly pedestrian approach to crime-solving and his bizarre domestic situation add quirky appeal to this film.

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.