Toon Talk: Dick Tracy DVD
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From its first frames (‘panels’?), Dick Tracy literally brings a comic strip to life. No other comic-based film before or since has been able to so brilliantly transport the viewer into such a realm.

Set in an unnamed ‘Big City’ circa the 1940s, the police are valiantly fighting the good fight against the encroaching corruption of the mob-controlled underworld. We find our hero, the straight-laced Dick Tracy (Beatty) in the thick of it all, embroiled in a life-threatening battle with the self-appointed crime lord ‘Big Boy’ Caprice (Pacino, looking like a bloated Muppet - probably from eating all the scenery in site). Along the way he encounters a scruffy orphan known only as The Kid (Charlie Korsmo), the slinky chanteuse Breathless Mahoney (Madonna, in her kewpie-doll voiced mode) and a rogue’s gallery of freakily made-up baddies with such apt monikers as Flattop, Little Face and Mumbles (a hilariously peroxided, hair-lipped Dustin Hoffman), all the while juggling his relationship with stalwart good girl Tess Truehart (Glenne Headly) and dodging political red tape from shady District Attorney Fletcher (a cast-against-type Dick Van Dyke).

With a supporting cast filled with more celebrity names and character actors then a 1970s disaster flick (Paul Sorvino, James Caan, Charles Durning, Henry Silva, Seymour Cassel, Kathy Bates, Beatty’s Bonnie & Clyde co-stars Estelle Warren and Michael J. Pollard), Tracy is fundamentally hampered by its title ‘dick’ (period slang for ‘detective’). As the not-quite-so-square-jawed main character, Beatty is a cipher in his own film, a blank in the middle of the chaos. Whether Beatty intentionally held back to throw the spotlight on his more colorful co-stars, or the character’s true blue straightness proved unplayable for the actor (he is better showcased in grittier, showier roles such as in Reds and Bugsy), Beatty the director ultimately undermines the picture as a whole by casting himself as the protagonist and then doing nothing to bring him to life.

Beatty’s direction does manage to maintain an even balance between the story’s comic book stylings and the grimier gangland aspects … that is, until he goes all Wild Bunch during the ultra-violent confrontation with Big Boy’s goons, mowing them all down with a blazing Tommy gun. Segue to the confounding, dimly-lit climax (torn directly from the pages of the Batman movie) and one is left wondering exactly what type of film Beatty was trying to make here: Technicolor fantasy or grim pulp fiction.

Yet all is not entirely lost: in addition to its technical and design marvels, the rapid fire ‘comic speak’ of Jack Epps Jr. and Jim Cash’s script and the lushly romantic, very ‘old Hollywood’ musical score by Danny Elfman (who, along with this film, Batman and the upcoming Spider-Man, is apparently the guy to go to for classic super-hero music) keep the film moving along at a brisk pace.

And, in one of his rare forays into movies, Broadway mainstay Stephen Sondheim provides five show tunes, including Breathless’ torch song “Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)” and the haunting Madonna/Mandy Patinkin duet “What Can You Loose?”, all perfectly evocative of the period setting.

In fact, one of Sondheim’s songs best describes what Disney DVD fans would demand from any future edition of Dick Tracy: “More!”

Toon Talk Rating: C+

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Toon Talk Trivia:

• Dick Tracy was nominated for six Academy Awards: Supporting Actor (Al Pacino), Cinematography (Vittorio Storaro), Art Direction, Costume Design, Original Song (“Sooner or Later … ” by Stephen Sondheim), Sound and Make-up. It won three: Art Direction, Original Song and Make-Up.
• The film was also nominated for four Golden Globes: Best Picture - Musical/Comedy, Supporting Actor (Pacino) and two Original Songs (“Sooner or Later … ” and “What Can You Loose?”).
• Vittorio Storaro received another nomination for Dick Tracy, from the American Society of Cinematographers.
• Madonna would triumph in another musical role in a Disney produced film, winning the Golden Globe for her portrayal of Eva Peron in Hollywood Pictures’ Evita.
• Composer Danny Elfman returned, penning both the score and songs for Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. His other Disney music credits include Flubber, My Favorite Martian, Spy Kids and its upcoming sequel, Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams.
• D.A. Fletcher was played by Disney Legend Dick Van Dyke, star of Mary Poppins, Lt. Robinson Crusoe, U.S.N. and Never a Dull Moment.
• Roger Rabbit himself, Charles Fleischer, appears as one of the reporters grilling Big Boy upon his release from the police station.
• Dick Tracy, Big Boy and Breathless starred in the live Diamond Double-Cross stage show at both the Disney-MGM Studios and Disneyland in 1990-1991.

Coming Soon in Toon Talk:

• Return to deep in the Hundred Acre Wood with the Collector’s Edition DVD of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, due May 7^th.
• Also available May 7^th, Disney DVD will premiere the new “Vault Disney” collection with four certified live action classics: Swiss Family Robinson, Old Yeller, Pollyanna and the original The Parent Trap.
• In Oliver and Company, contemporary New York City is the setting for Disney’s ‘animalized’ take on Dickens’ classic Oliver Twist, new to DVD in a special collector’s edition, out May 21^st

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Related Links

• Purchase Dick Tracy on DVD from The LaughingPlace Store
• The Many Adventures of Winnie on The LaughingPlace Store
• The Vault Disney Collection on The LaughingPlace Store
• List of all Toon Talk articles

-- Kirby C. Holt

-- Posted May 5, 2002