The Films I Love: Dick Tracy

I first remember seeing Dick Tracy back in 1990 when I was five years old.  At the time I loved the film for it's bright colors, flashiness, fun and weirdly grotesque characters, well staged action scenes, and Madonna was in it.  It was a great comic action film that was far more lighthearted than Batman, which had come out the year before.  It was also a film that I could watch with my parents and they would enjoy it as well, but for different reasons.  One of the biggest reasons for their enjoyment of the picture was Al Pacino and Warren Beatty - two stars of the screen that my parents had grown up with and admired for some time.  It wouldn't be till years later that I would discover all the great work that these two actors and sometimes filmmakers had done.  In a way Dick Tracy was a sort of introduction to them for me.  It was also an introduction into the world of comic filmmaking.  Now when I look at Dick Tracy I see it through different eyes than when I was a child, but one thing still remains the same - I love this film.

I remember a few years ago when Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller's Sin City came out. Everyone praised the film for being the first to actually look like the comic it was based off of.  Oh how short term everyone's memories must be.  If Dick Tracy features no other cinematic highlight (it has many), one cannot deny that it looks exactly like the comic from which it is based.  The art direction, production design,  costume design, and make-up design are all painstakingly recreated from the comic and given a hyper-stylized cinematic depiction on the screen.  The world that director Warren Beatty creates was unique at the time because it adhered to the groundwork laid out by the comic, but Beatty was able to combine that vision with his own and paint Dick Tracy on a very large canvas.  In this respect the film is extremely ambitious in every artistic detail and as a result it received multiple Academy Award nominations for it technical crew.  Sin City may look exactly like it's comic predecessor, but that is also what keeps the film down.  The directors have no room for cinematic interpretation, Warren Beatty had plenty.

Dick Tracy sports an eclectic cast of characters that are all in some way a bit deformed and wild looking.  You have Lips, Flattop, Prune Face, Little Face etc. and all of them are delightfully silly while also disturbingly scary.  But there are also "normal" characters for the audience to connect with including "the kid" and Dick Tracy himself.  Warren Beatty is perfectly cast (directing himself) as Dick Tracy because of his iconic status as a movie star, but also because of his dead-pan everyman appeal. He is the rock in the film for the audience to fall back on and gives a nice counter balance between all the wild villains and general wackiness happening within the world of the film.  Dick Tracy also has the classic temptress role given over to Madonna in what is probably one of her most memorable screen performances.  That's not exactly because her acting is great, in fact much of the time it leaves something to be desired since everyone around her is so skilled.  She is memorable because of the songs that she is given to sing and because of the seductive costumes and warm lighting that Beatty bathes her in, not to mention her last act twist that gives her character a whole new edge.  It's one of the few times where Madonna was appropriately used in a movie and to generally great affect.

Speaking of songs, one of the things that I have grown to admire about the film the older I get is it's use of music.  Stephen Sondheim was brought onto the project to write various numbers for the club scenes in Dick Tracy, most of which were to be sung by Madonna (He had previously written the score for Beatty's Oscar winning REDS).  But Beatty isn't content by keeping these songs in the background.  Instead he weaves them in and out of the entire picture and they very much become a character in and of themselves providing commentary on the actions and motivations of the characters and events.  It's a brilliant move by Beatty and it is completely unique to this comic movie.  As a result, Dick Tracy becomes a sort of comic action musical.  Sooner or Later, which is Madonna's big number in the film, won the Oscar for best song.  But for my money the best song in Dick Tracy is a duet between Mandy Patinkin and Madonna titled What Can You Lose?  It comes at a perfect spot when everything seems to be going to hell in Tracy's life and the story is coming to it's eventual climax.

And even after all the film's technical and musical achievements won me over, it was ultimately a performance that would make Dick Tracy unforgettable.  That performance comes from Al Pacino as Big Boy Caprice.  To me, this is the last great performance that Al Pacino ever gave.  It's silly and stylish, but hardly one note.  Big Boy is a villain that you love because how much of a moronic brute he is.  His interaction with Tracy and Madonna's character Breathless, is at times hysterically funny.  This film also marked the time when Pacino started using his now infamous screaming fits on screen. Looking at Dick Tracy now it seems that Pacino may be up to his usual shtick, but at the time it was fresh and memorable.  His performance along with Beatty's direction gave credibility to what could have easily been seen as a silly, but stylish comic action picture.  

Dick Tracy is not looked at as favorably as it was when it came out.  Many critics cited it as a unique vision and step forward for comic filmmaking.  Now in the wake of all the summer comic blockbusters in the past ten years, Tracy seems dated and old fashioned.  But I still look at Beatty's film as landmark in comic filmmaking and a unique adaptation of a comic story.  In fact, I would list it along side of the original Superman and the most recent Dark Knight as one of the best comic films ever made.  If you haven't seen Dick Tracy I would recommend giving it a look.  If you have seen it, but haven't looked at it in a few years then I would suggest you pick it back up.  It may just put a smile on your face and make you remember how blockbusters used to be a sort of cinematic art form and not just the moneymaking whores of the industry as they are today, minus The Dark Knight :)

Dick Tracy (1990)

Dir. Warren Beatty

105 min.

Nominated for 7 Academy Awards including Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Sound

Winner of 3 Academy Awards including Best Art Direction, Best Make-Up, and Best Original Song