Dick Tracy (1990)
Director: Warren Beatty
Cast: Warren Beatty,
Madonna, Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, Charlie Korsmo, William Forsythe, Mandy
Patinkin, Catherine O’Hara, James Caan, Dick Van Dyke, Kathy Bates
The 90’s brought on the rebirth of the big budget comic book
movie (which had been dead since Richard Donner’s Superman films) thanks to the
phenomenal worldwide success of Tim Burton’s Batman (1989), suddenly every
studio wanted to make a comic book movie, the problem was they didn’t know how
to go about it. For some reason, they got the idea in their heads that going
with ancient comic book heroes like The Phantom (1996) and The Shadow (1994) was
a good idea. And even when they did do original comic book films, they went
with a comic book that paid tribute to all those old heroes called The
Rocketeer (1991). The studios hadn’t figured out yet that people really wanted
the more contemporary heroes like Spiderman and the X-Men, which is probably
why a lot of those old school comic book movies tanked at the box office.
Batman made kajillions because the character had remained alive in the
collective consciousness because Batman has always remained in print, it had
its own television show and it became a part of popular culture. Not so with
the older characters, which though not entirely dead, were not as recognized by
modern audiences. In other words, characters like The Shadow and The Phantom
all had their day back in the 30’s and 40’s. Today’s kids aren’t really
familiar with these characters. The same can be said of Dick Tracy, Chester
Gould’s hard boiled detective that started out in comic strips, on news papers,
three little squares of story per week. The strip was such hit that they made
Dick Tracy serials, radio shows, b-movies, you name it. Unfortunately, Tracy
never got the big screen treatment that Chester Gould wanted. That is until
Warren Beatty came along and directed this here picture.
I remember seeing Dick Tracy in theaters, that awesome summer
of 1990. It was a big summer as far as blockbuster movies go. Squished in
between big action films like Robocop 2 (1990), Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990)
and Total Recall (1990), Beatty’s Dick Tracy (1990) seemed tame in comparison,
it made my 15 year old mind wonder if it was going to make it a the box office.
I remember there was a big publicity push for the movie, Disney (under the
Buena Vista Pictures banner) made sure you knew about the film one way or
another, right down to selling Madonna’s soundtrack ‘I’m Breathless’, which by
the way I really dug and still own to this day. Was the film a huge hit in
theaters? Well, it didn’t lose money, but it wasn’t the smash hit that they
were expecting either. The smash hit of that summer was Patrick Swayze and Demi
Moore in Ghost (1990). Dick Tracy ended up making 162 million dollars worldwide, a figure that didn’t
impress its producers and probably the main reason we never saw a sequel. But
who cares what producers think right? At the end of the day, what we really
care about is if the movie was good or not.
And in my opinion, Dick Tracy was excellent; the problem was that Dick
Tracy was a hero from another era, with a big budget film that came many
decades too late.
But if you can see past the fact that Dick Tracy is a hero from the 30’s you can actually have a lot of fun with this movie. While I understand why the masses shy away from anything they consider ‘old’ or ‘passé’, I personally enjoy all types of films, I don’t just watch contemporary things, I can appreciate the many attributes that a film like Dick Tracy has to offer, for example, it’s a beautiful film to look at. Warren Beatty aimed to make a film that looked like the comic strips; so he went with a color palette composed of primary colors that leap off the screen; this movie is pure eye candy, a vibrant kaleidoscope of colors! Dick Tracy was made using old school filmmaking techniques and I have a great appreciation for films made using miniatures and matte paintings to create city landscapes, I just love that about films made this way. The interesting thing is that Dick Tracy was made just before computer generated effects were about to take over, so it’s one of the last films to be made this way. I think that Beatty wanted to purposely make an old school film, same way that Coppola purposely used old school visual effects to make Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992). In this way, the director evokes a bygone era of filmmaking; Beatty wanted to take us back in time. And he achieved it if you ask me. We go back to a time when hardboiled detectives were out on the streets trying to solve the crime, getting the bad guys in the big bad city. In this way Dick Tracy is an interesting film because it has elements of film noir, yet it’s also colorful and vibrant, bringing together an interesting mix of genres and styles.
But if you can see past the fact that Dick Tracy is a hero from the 30’s you can actually have a lot of fun with this movie. While I understand why the masses shy away from anything they consider ‘old’ or ‘passé’, I personally enjoy all types of films, I don’t just watch contemporary things, I can appreciate the many attributes that a film like Dick Tracy has to offer, for example, it’s a beautiful film to look at. Warren Beatty aimed to make a film that looked like the comic strips; so he went with a color palette composed of primary colors that leap off the screen; this movie is pure eye candy, a vibrant kaleidoscope of colors! Dick Tracy was made using old school filmmaking techniques and I have a great appreciation for films made using miniatures and matte paintings to create city landscapes, I just love that about films made this way. The interesting thing is that Dick Tracy was made just before computer generated effects were about to take over, so it’s one of the last films to be made this way. I think that Beatty wanted to purposely make an old school film, same way that Coppola purposely used old school visual effects to make Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992). In this way, the director evokes a bygone era of filmmaking; Beatty wanted to take us back in time. And he achieved it if you ask me. We go back to a time when hardboiled detectives were out on the streets trying to solve the crime, getting the bad guys in the big bad city. In this way Dick Tracy is an interesting film because it has elements of film noir, yet it’s also colorful and vibrant, bringing together an interesting mix of genres and styles.
The cast is something truly amazing! Beatty as Tracy is
pitch perfect casting if you ask me. Beatty has said that they tried applying
fake noses and jaws on him to make him look more like Gould’s sketches and that
ultimately they decided not to go with it because it would distract audiences.
I think it was a great idea because Tracy’s normality goes in direct contrast
to the downright grotesque villains. And while the villains are comic book
monsters, Tracy is human, he’s all about heart. He’s Tracy, the ultimate good
guy who is in many ways like Superman, the embodiment of all that is good and
pure in humanity. He’s loyal to the love of his life, Tess Truehart even though
Breathless Mohoney is trying to eat him up every chance she gets. Tracy’s such
a good guy; he wants to adopt an orphan he picks up from the streets. He’s all
about the law and doing what’s right, he’s honest and hard working, he wants to
get the bad guys. He’s the ultimate do gooder. His counterpart is Al Pacino’s
Big Boy Caprice, one of Pacino’s most over the top performances, he got an
Oscar nomination for this performance. He just goes nuts here. Madonna as
Breathless Mahoney oozes sensuality, you have to understand this was Madonna at
the peak of her youthful beauty, she was so damn sexy in those days! She exploits
that sensuality for all its worth. Every line Breathless speaks is in double
entendres. Then we have Big Boys gang, which is composed of a who’s who of
character actors like William Forsythe, Ed O Ross and Paul Sorvino. We also get
big name actors playing smaller roles, like Dustin Hoffman playing ‘Mumbles’
one of Big Boys men, who, as his name suggests, mumbles everything he says. All
these characters make the film an amalgam of craziness straight out of a comic
book, made all the more interesting because each and every one of these actors
are made up to look exactly like Gould’s original drawings. Which I’m sure made
making this film, a huge challenge, I mean, having all those actors in make up
at the same time!
The icing on this Dick Tracy cake is the music! The
orchestral score was composed by the always excellent Danny Elman. His score is
grandiose and epic, similar in many ways to his score for Batman (1989), but
then again, that’s the exact reason why Elfman was hired, Beatty was impressed
with Elfman’s score for Batman (1989). Then we have the soundtrack, written by
Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim and sung by Madonna, it makes for one of
Madonna’s most unique albums. It’s fun, retro and heartfelt. So as you can see,
many awesome elements came together to make Dick Tracy an extremely unique
film, a trip back in time to simpler times when good was good and evil was
evil, no place for in betweens; or is there? At the end of the day, while Tracy
is always out to get Big Boy and his gang, this film is really about Tracy
having to decide between pleasure and sensuality over true love, marriage, kids
and possibly becoming a family man. Which one will he choose? Tracy is torn
between being a bachelor or becoming a family, some say this mirrored Warren
Beatty’s own personal life, after all, Beatty was the ultimate bachelor back in
his day. So anyhow, I’ve gone on long enough, bottom line is Dick Tracy is an
excellent comic book movie, dare I say one of the best ones ever, an excellent
production from beginning to end.
