Dick Tracy celebrated with comic return
Twenty-eight years ago this summer, Warren Beatty starred in “Dick Tracy,” a big-budget production featuring a hard-hitting detective.
The OKC Film Society is celebrating Tracy with a free screening at 7 p.m. Monday at The Venue OKC,1757 NW 16, in the Plaza District.
“What I can tell you about the film we’re screening is it is from a trend in the early ‘90s where studios were adapting pulp superheroes properties from the 1930s in an effort to capitalize on the success of ‘Batman’ (1989),” said Alex Palmer, of the OKC Film Society. “Some the of these films were good, and some were bad; the film we will be screening in July was not only the best film to come out of the trend, but also the most visually daring. Having a cast that includes Al Pacino, Madonna, Dustin Hoffman, Dick Van Dyke and James Caan adds to the film’s intrigue.”
The film screening at The Venue OKC will include a brief post-film discussion for those who want to delve deeper.
Dick Tracy was created by Pawnee native Chester Gould, who drew the comic strip from its debut in 1931 until his retirement in 1977. “Dick Tracy” still appears in newspaper comic pages today. Gould was possibly the first writer to bring crime fiction to comics.
The early comic strips and comic books that dealt with crime were dealing with the aftermath of the Prohibition era and the gangsters that era spawned, as seen in “Dick Tracy,” and searching for heroes and escapism as the Great Depression began.
Dick Tracy, first called “Plainclothes Tracy,” was a police detective on the Chicago police force. Gould previously had worked as a sports cartoonist for what was then The Daily Oklahoman (now The Oklahoman) from 1919-1921 while a student at Oklahoma A&M College in Stillwater.
The character appeared inother media quickly; from 1934 to 1948 he was the star of a radio program. In 1945, Bing Crosby played the radio Tracy in the special “Dick Tracy in B Flat.” Tracy first made the move to comic books in 1936, was the first feature in the long-running Dell “Four Color” series in 1939; and in 1948 launched a monthly series that would ultimately run 145 issues.
The first film serial with the detective, “Dick Tracy,” was released in 1937, with three sequels following. After four serials, Tracy made the jump to features, with the feature-length “Dick Tracy” in 1945.
Ralph Byrd reprised his role from the serials and two of the features in the 1950 TV series. An animated series and some animated appearances followed, but Tracy next made a major pop-cultural impression in the 1990 film.
“July is a month where we always try to pick something that is related to blockbuster filmmaking in some way,” Palmer said. “With the deluge of superhero films coming out right now, we thought it would be interesting to pick a film out of a trend of superhero movies that not only predates Iron Man, but even Blade.”
Beatty produced, directed and starred in the film, which boasted an all-star cast, including Pacino, Madonna, Hoffman and Dick Van Dyke. The filmwas nominated for seven Oscars and made nearly $163 million on a $47 million production budget.
“You can look at elements of this movie in two ways: You can say it’s superrealism, or you can say it’s phony. You can say that the characters are prototypical, or you can say they’re stereotypes. You can say that it’s one cliche after another, or you can say there’s one universal situation,” Beatty told The
Oklahoman’s Chuck Davis back in 1990.
“I think that Disney got the joke, like they got the joke in ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit.’ I made this movie because I wanted it to be suitable for kids and the kid in me. Really, I think making this movie, I was trying to be 7 years old again like the kid I was when I began to read this strip.
“Simple emotions, primary emotions, primary colors.”
A much-discussed sequel never came to fruition, and the rights were entangled between Beatty and Tribune Media Services for years. A TV special aired in 2009 starring Beatty as Tracy that was created at least in part to keep the rights under Beatty’s control.
While it’s hard to say when another “Tracy” film might hit the silver screen, Tracy’s comic strip adventures continue, and a new comic book for the character recently was announced by IDW Publishing.
“Dick Tracy: Dead or Alive!” is set for September release from the creative team of Michael Allred, Lee Allred, Rich Tommaso and Laura Allred.
“I am thrilled to try my hand at drawing this legendary, pulpy, hard-boiled crime classic,” penciler Rich Tommaso said in a news release. “Along with Roy Crane, Milton Caniff, Noel Sickles, Jack Cole, and Alex Toth, Chester Gould is a cartoonist that I am perpetually inspired by when I’m working on my own crime stories.”
The four-issue miniseries will feature Tracy as written by Michael Allred collaborating with his brother, Lee, as writer. Michael Allred’s wife, Laura, will serve as color artist on the series; Michael Allred will also provide inks.
“Dick Tracy is an instantly recognizable old-school icon, like Mickey Mouse and Superman, but he’s been out of the spotlight a while and due for a curtain call. We want to shake it up and show the glow in the 21st century,” Allred said.