Dick Tracy (film)



"I'm on my way."

In 1990, Walt Disney Pictures took Chester Gould's relatively simple crime-drama comic strip and re-imagined it as a big-budget extravaganza with big-name actors, colorful costumes, special effects and plenty of music. Warren Beatty both directed the film and starred in the title role.

The setting is a Chicago-like city sometime in the early 1930s. Detective Dick Tracy (Beatty) is the most dogged plainclothes cop on the street, dividing his time between punching out mooks and making sure young delinquents get sent to the orphanage. A new challenge to his authority soon emerges in the form of up-and-coming gang boss Big Boy Caprice (Al Pacino), who unites all his former rivals into a citywide gangland coalition. Now Tracy's only hope in foiling Big Boy's schemes lies with nightclub singer Breathless Mahoney (Madonna), who is prepared to help the detective....for a price.

The movie also starred Glenne Headley as Tess Trueheart and Charlie Korsmo as the nameless "Kid." It won Academy Awards for Best Art Direction, Best Makeup, and Best Original Song (Stephen Sondheim's "Sooner or Later"). Pacino was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor (in a Playboy interview, he actually listed it among his top 5 performances).

One of the striking features of the film was its attempt to replicate, in live action, the flat colors and limited palette of the comic strip. Every yellow thing was the same bright yellow as Dick Tracy's trademark outfit, every blue thing was the same blue, every red thing the same red, and so on. And unlike, say, Sin City, which did it with computer tinting, Dick Tracy did it by actually painting and dying the physical objects those colors.

"Kid: I don't like dames. Tess Trueheart: Neither do I."
 * Award Bait Song: All five of the songs written for the film by Stephen Sondheim. "Sooner Or Later" took home the Oscar for Best Original Song.
 * Awesome McCoolname: Largely inverted. The gangster's villainous monikers are all actually rather unflattering; Pruneface, Itchy, etc. There are some exceptions, like Big Boy Caprice.
 * Badass in a Nice Suit: The majority of the bad guys, the good guys too.
 * Badass Longcoat: Being about the same color as a banana does nothing to make it any less badass.
 * Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: (also good example of Villainous Rescue).
 * Big Eater: The Kid.
 * The Blank: Trope namer, in this case a faceless (literally) mystery man who undermines Big Boy's operation.
 * Bluff the Imposter: The villains do this to Tracy.
 * Boomerang Bigot:

"The Kid: You two married? Tess: No, would you like a broken arm? -The Kid puts the dollar bill back where he found it.-"
 * Bully Hunter:
 * Tracy, when attacking a hobo who's been abusing the Kid.
 * The Blank as well, although perhaps more of a Vigilante Man.
 * Catch Phrase: "I'm on my way."
 * Cement Shoes: In this case, it's an entire cement suit.
 * Co-Dragons: Itchy and Flattop. This is a big change from the comics, in which Flattop was probably Tracy's Arch Enemy.
 * Comm Links
 * Cool and Unusual Punishment: How Mumbles is interrogated at the police station.
 * Cowboy Cop: And how!
 * Da Chief: Actually the District Attorney, but he fills the same role of breaking Tracy's balls.
 * Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!
 * Dark Is Not Evil: Played with. The Blank is indeed evil, but may qualify as an Anti-Villain.
 * Death Trap
 * Dirty Coward: Big Boy instructs all his men to gather in their cars and drive out into the street in front of the Club Ritz to meet the police in a final showdown - but himself chickens out at the last minute, attempting to flee across the river with Tess as his hostage.
 * Although a smart move on his part; the criminals get mowed down easily since they're bottlenecked coming out of the garage.
 * Disney Villain Death: Subverted, as Big Boy is pushed over a ledge.
 * The Don: Big Boy Caprice.
 * Dude in Distress: Tracy winds up as this on more than one occasion.
 * Enemy Mine: Ultimately subverted in the case of The Blank.
 * "The enemy of my enemy is my enemy." But....if the first enemy is the enemy of his second enemy, then that makes his second enemy his friend. But he can't be his friend, because he's his enemy. But that means....
 * The Fagin: "Steve The Tramp" has "Kid" steal for him. Dick Tracy tracks Kid back to Steve's shack and beats Steve up, freeing Kid.
 * Femme Fatale: Breathless loves playing with this trope.
 * Five-Bad Band:
 * Big Bad: Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice.
 * The Dragon: Flattop.
 * The Evil Genius: Numbers.
 * The Brute: Pruneface.
 * Before aligning with Big Boy, had his own Dragon, "Influence".
 * The Dark Chick: Itchy (high squeaky voice).
 * A better candidate for The Dark Chick might be Texie Garcia, who seems to be more or less the social equal of the male gangsters and is the only woman in the movie Big Boy doesn't make a point of treating like dirt.
 * The Sixth Ranger Traitor: 88 Keys (helps The Blank frame Big Boy for Tess' kidnapping).
 * Follow the Leader: Although Beatty's development of the film had been in the works as long as Tim Burton's Batman, it still retained a lot of elements that drew comparisons since Batman was released a year earlier. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone noted that they both contained: "a loner hero, a grotesque villain, a blond bombshell, a marketable pop soundtrack and a no-mercy merchandising campaign." That also didn't factor in the Art Deco-inspired set design, the original working script being worked on by Tom Mankiewicz (both films would basically discard them), and Danny Elfman as composer (and Travers noted that his Tracy score was incredibly similar to his one for Batman).
 * There's also the fact that the traits Tavers cited could probably be used to describe a ridiculous number of films. That's like saying RoboCop is a ripoff of Friday the 13th because both feature "a tormented man given a powerful new body to take revenge on the element responsible for his death".
 * Foreshadowing: In the movie's opening action sequence, we see five hoodlums playing poker in a warehouse. One of them draws aces and eights - the "Dead Man's Hand" - just before a car crashes into the warehouse and all five men are violently shot to death.
 * Frame-Up: Tracy is framed for murder.
 * Genre Savvy: Tess didn't even have to look at The Kid, to know that he was gonna swipe the money Tracy left to pay for dinner.

"Tracy: Make a note Patton, they waved their right to a phone call."
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: Holy crap, for a PG film you have Breathless in a sheer nightdress, wearing barely anything at all bordering on Nipple-and-Dimed.
 * Not to mention the Polar Bear water cooler with the faucet placed in the obvious place.
 * Gold Digger: The nightclub song "More" pretty much says it all: "Got my diamonds/Got my yacht/Got a guy I adore/....Something's better than nothing, yes/But nothing's better than more, more, more!"
 * Good Is Not Soft: Tracy, his line of work aside is pretty much a Nice Guy, but when it comes to organized crime he relies on brutal methods to get the truth out. Such as ripping the phone cord out before handing Flattop the phone and writing it off as him waving his One Phone Call right.  As well as making Mumbles sweat under the lights, while deliberately drinking water in front of him to make him confess.

"Big Boy Caprice: Around me, if a woman don't wear mink, she don't wear nuttin'. Breathless Mahoney: Well, I look good both ways."
 * Greasy Spoon: The Diner Tracy and Tess hang out at.
 * Handy Cuffs: After being framed for murder, Tracy is being moved from the police holding cell to the county lock-up. His fellow police officers handcuff him in the front, Tracy comments on the lapse in procedure. As it turns out the move was a ruse to allow Tracy the time needed to clear his name.
 * Heroes Want Redheads: Not that the blonde didn't put up a hell of a fight....
 * The Hyena: Flattop.
 * Ironic Nickname
 * Jabba Table Manners: Lips Manlis noisily sucking oysters down his throat by the mouthful.
 * Kick the Dog: Big Boy smashes the fingers of 88 Keys in a piano when he becomes frustrated with the slow progress made by his performers during a rehearsal at the Club Ritz.
 * Kill Him Already: The Blank has the chance to drill Tracy and escape scot-free, but doesn't. This is fully justified in the context of the story.
 * Large Ham: Many of the villains have their moments, but Big Boy Caprice in particular takes the cake. Then again, it is Al Pacino.
 * Lean and Mean: A number of the thugs, most notably Itchy.
 * Monochrome Casting: Except for a Chinese shop owner who gets shaken down during the extortion scenes.
 * Ms. Fanservice: Madonna.
 * Nice Hat: Tracy's unmistakable butter-colored chapeau.
 * Officer O'Hara: Okay, so the cop's name is actually "Moriarty." But he still tends to, aye, tawk loike this, boyo.
 * Our Monsters Are Different: So many of the criminals seen in this film are literally inhumanly grotesque. But not only do they not feel shunned or isolated from "normal" humans; they actually are quite proud of themselves, and even consider themselves pillars of the community! An especially striking example is when Tracy busts into the Club Ritz in an attempt to arrest Big Boy Caprice for illegal gambling: Pruneface acts offended, and swears that he would never set foot inside any establishment that allowed such a thing!
 * Outside Ride: Kid's specialty.
 * Perp Sweating: Tracy to Mumbles.
 * Pretty in Mink: Breathless Mahoney.


 * Redemption Equals Death:.
 * Red Right Hand: Every criminal in the city.
 * The Reveal: Turns out the Blank is really...wait, who was he again? I forgot...
 * The Roaring Twenties: The Club Ritz is stuck in this era (since it's technically supposed to be the Thirties), with Charleston-dancing flappers and illegal booz - er, gambling.
 * : The Blank.
 * Scenery Porn: Virtually every one of the reviews for the film, positive and negative, heaped a lot of praise on the art direction, set design, and color scheme, with some like Roger Ebert even saying it outdid Tim Burton's Batman in the eye-candy department.
 * Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: Or rather, Warren Beatty is shooting at you with a tommy gun. See the movie poster above.
 * The Starscream: The Blank, to Big Boy Caprice. And, ironically, Big Boy himself: he betrayed his former friend and mentor Lips Manlis and took over his criminal empire.
 * Take a Third Option: Dick Tracy desperately wants Breathless Mahoney to take the witness stand when they bring Big Boy Caprice to trial, although she points out that this will probably result in her death. Caprice, meanwhile, fully expects Mahoney to stay silent, if for no other reason than sheer terror. Mahoney ultimately decides to.
 * Tempting Fate: When Tess and Tracy discuss the latter taking a desk job, he says he's as likely to get a new girlfriend than he would a desk job. Cue every scene after of Breathless Mahoney trying to seduce Dick Tracy.
 * Those Two Bad Guys: Itchy and Flattop.
 * Trademark Favorite Food: A few characters have had prominence in this trope. Big Boy has an affinity for Walnuts which Tracy tries to use against him as evidence of Lips' death. Tracy himself likes chili, even cooking some in his office hotplate before interrogating Flattop. Lips Manlis likes oysters and was first seen eating a platter full, before Flattop captures him and Breathless.
 * Train Escape: The Kid pulls one to lose Tracy during The Chase.
 * The Trope Kid: Kid.
 * The Unintelligible: Mumbles.
 * The Vamp: Breathless Mahoney.
 * : Played with. Breathless Mahoney is a lot tougher than Tess Trueheart, but she's prettier as well.
 * Villainous Breakdown


 * The Voiceless: Played with. Mumbles CAN talk, but since no one can understand him it doesn't matter. He actually intentionally screws with people in this way, at one point giving a full confession to the cops, gleefully certain that they have no idea what he's saying.
 * We Can Rule Together: But Tracy will have none of it.
 * What Happened to the Mouse?: Poor officer Pat Patton. After Dick Tracy has him jump down into the Club Ritz attic to catapult Tracy out of the locked room and back onto the roof, he's never mentioned again. We never see Tracy tell any fellow officers to go get him, so for all we know he's still trapped there.
 * Wounded Gazelle Gambit: While The Blank and 88 Keys are framing Tracy for D.A. Fletcher's murder, 88 Keys loudly protests that Tracy (actually The Blank in Tracy's yellow coat) is threatening to shoot him.
 * Wretched Hive