Another of the movies that I recorded during one of the free preview weekends was the 1990 version of Dick Tracy. I finally got around to watching it recently, so today you get a blog post on it.
Based on the vintage comic strip by Chester Gould, the movie is set in a 1930s metropolis beset by gangland crime which is fought by upright police detective Dick Tracy (Warren Beatty). Tracy's nemesis Big Boy (Al Pacino) is trying to consolidate all the underworld crime under his leadership, and when some other gang bosses don't go for it, he has them rubbed out, witnessed Some Like it Hot-style by The Kid (Charles Korsmo). The Kid is a petty criminal, engaging in pickpocketing to surive and appease an abusive father figure. Dick catches the Kid who, not having real parents, is set to go to the orphanage. Dick and his long-suffering girlfriend, Tess Trueheart (Glenne Headly), are going to serve as his foster parents until the Kid can be sent to the orphanage.
Dick is still trying to bring down Big Boy, who for his part is still trying to bring the other gang bosses under his wing, doing so from his headquarters at the Club Ritz where Breathless Mahoney (Madonna) serves as the nightclub's singer and main attraction. She's a witness to some of Big Boy's crimes, but would seemingly rather seduce Dick despite his having a girlfriend than spill the beans on Big Boy. Big Boy tries to bribe Dick and have him offed when Dick refuses the bribe, but the Kid saves Dick.
Dick responds by a feint raid on the Club Ritz which is really an excuse to plant a bug in the club to stop Big Boy's reign of crime. It works for a while, but Big Boy eventually finds the bug, and a mysterious criminal, The Blank, kidnaps both Tess and Dick in a further attempt to bring Dick to heel. It's all part of a much more audacious scheme....
Dick Tracy is probably best known for its production design, and that's for good reason. Warren Beatty, who also served as the movie's producer, decided that he wanted a movie that would recreate the look of Chester Gould's comic strip. The strip, being released on newsprint, had to rely on broad drawings and bold primary colors, with the latter being eye-popping in the movie that results. It's extremely distinctive, but works quite well.
But while it's the color scheme that most people will remember, the rest of the movie is pretty darn good too. The plot is fairly well done; the make-up is good for having to do the difficult job of going over the top for the villains with names like Pruneface and Flattop; and the acting is OK. Among the names I haven't mentioned yet are Dustin Hoffman as Mumbles, the mumbling stool pigeon; Dick Van Dyke as the D.A.; or Charles Durning as the chief of police. One big plus is the original songs by Stephen Sondheim which are an excellent throwback to the pre-war era, especially "Sooner or Later" which was sung by Madonna and won an Oscar. There is a fair amount of violence, but as befits a movie based on a comic strip, it's mostly handled in a cartoonish manner.
Dick Tracy is a movie I can definitely recommend, and it's available on DVD and Blu-ray should you wish to watch for yourself.
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2 comments:
The casting is really impressive; I like that Beatty got two of his co-stars from Bonnie and Clyde to be in the film (Estelle Parsons and Michael J Pollard).
Now that you have seen the movie, I have to ask. Did it come as a surprise when Noface was revealed to be Breathless Mahoney at the end? When I first saw it I was a bit surprised actually.
Yea, I was kind of surprised too. Of course, all of the bad guys were so heavily made up that it was a bit difficult to see the actual actors underneath.
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