Dick Tracy (1945)
Directed by William Berke

Film Review

The first full-length film outing for Chester Gould's legendary comic scrip crime fighter Dick Tracy combines the striking aesthetics of classic American film noir with the lightning pace of Gould's original stories.  This was the first of four Dick Tracy films made by RKO in the 1940s.  In the first two, Tracy was played by Morgan Conway, in what is considered by many to be the definitive screen portrayal of the infallible sleuth; in the second two, Ralph Byrd took over the Tracy mantle, somewhat less successfully.

The heavy film noir stylisation gives this film a dark brooding menace that heightens the thrills and adds to the tension, especially in the nerve-wracking final confrontation between Tracy and his nemesis.  The one downside is that the characterisation and plot twists are no more sophisticated than in Gould's comic strips, and the generally lacklustre performances (Conway excluded) do little to invigorate the story.  Despite its shortcomings, this film is faithful to the spirit of the original Dick Tracy stories, far more so than Warren Beatty's glossy 1990 revival.

Film Synopsis

After a middle-aged schoolteacher is savagely assaulted and killed one evening, police detective Dick Tracy finds he has to cancel his dinner date with his girlfriend and embark on yet another murder investigation.  Arriving at the scene of the crime, Tracy finds a suspicious letter on the dead woman's body.  Signed Splitface, the letter contains a threatening demand for money.  Not long afterwards, the town's mayor receives a similar extortion note, but for a much larger sum of money.  Hearing of the teacher's killing, the mayor fears that he will be the murderer's next target.  Whilst he is in pursuit of the killer one dark night, Dick Tracy comes across a mysterious astrologer, who predicts that there will be fourteen killings in total.  With no apparent connection between the victims Tracy has his work cut out establishing a motive for murder, and an even greater task identifying the killer...