Leofwine_draca
Previously, the DICK TRACY features I've been watching were the Republic serials starring Ralph Byrd; this 1945 film saw RKO take over production and reduce the running times to one-hour pictures. They also have a new hero here in the form of Morgan Conway, who isn't quite as much fun as Byrd was. The good news is that this fast-paced crime outing has a top villain the form of the hugely imposing 'Splitface', a nightmarish-looking creation who'd give Rondo Hatton a run for his money. The thrills and spills that follow are slick and surprisingly adult-themed in places, particularly that vicious opening murder sequence.
Andy Fish
If you're expecting MALTESE FALCON you're in the wrong place. This first in the RKO Dick Tracy movies based on Chester Gould's hardboiled policeman is very faithful to the source material and a LOT of fun.The cast is well chosen and Morgan Conway looks like he stepped right off the comics page.What is unexpected is the inky black noirish camera work, something that was very rare for a B-picture. The entire series was entertaining, with Ralph Byrd replacing Conway for the third and fourth installments, and the two earliest entries were geared towards an adult audience as shown in the violence depicted.Pull the stick out of your crack, sit back and enjoy some very entertaining little films from a more innocent time, when our good guys were someone to look up to.
sol
(Some Spoilers) Dick Tracy, Morgan Conway, is out to stop a split-faced killer who's been extorting his victims before he slices them up in this film-noir-like crime drama with former professional wrestler Paul Mazurki as the elusive and hulking murderer. From his first victim schoolteacher Dorothy Stafford, Mary Currier, to the threat on the mayors, William Halligan,life the killer sent extortion letters to them wanting from $500.00, from Stafford, to $10,000.00, from the mayor, in extortion money. The only person who the killer actually got to pay him off was Willbert Thomas with the $1,000.00 in small bills, that his letter to him demanded, also was later found slashed to death. It turned out that someone who knew the murderer and he motives for his singling out people who had, what at first seemed, nothing in common with each other and thus blackmailing them without the killers knowledge. In the end it would lead to him becoming one of Splitface's victim. There's a number of confusing plot lines in "Dick Tracy" mostly with the movie going into the murder weapon, a surgical knife, that Alexis "Splitface" Benning used in his crimes; why go through all the trouble of breaking into a funeral home to steal it, together with two other like-wise knives, and thus leave clues to his identity? The part of Professor Linwood Starling, Trevor Bardette, was also a bit strange. He looks into his crystal ball and seems to predict his own death at the hands of Splitface but later is shocked and surprised when Splitface recites word for word what he said, by looking into his ball, before he murdered him! was Starling really a clairvoyant or did he just make a lucky, or unlucky for him, guess? There's also the funeral director Deathridge, Milton Person, what exactly did he have to do with either Splitface or Starling and why did Splitface murder him? It's never really brought out in the movie and the only connection he had with the killer was that he, Splitface, used a knife that he stole from him to do his dirty work. The clever Splitface let his guard down by being accidentally seen by Dick Tracy's girlfriend Tess,Ann Jeffreys, who he was determined to find and shut up forever. When he did find Tess instead of murdering her, like all of his previous victims, Splitface kidnaps her and is later tracked down by Tracy and the police putting an end to his reign of terror.The reason for Splitface's murder spree, and why he targeted the person that he did for elimination, becomes obvious when it turns out that all of them just happened to be jurors on his trial for murdering, by cutting to ribbons, his girlfriend. The jurors sentenced him to a long prison term which made Splitface very angry at them.The final scene with the powerful six foot six 230 pound Splitface getting the hell knocked out of him by a slim under six foot Dick Tracy looked embarrassingly staged as well as totally unbelievable.
Jay Harris
Morgan Conway vainly attempts to portray the comic strip hero. all the supporting characters from the strip are her & adequatly portrayed.Mike Muzurki play Splitface, the mad slasher. there are a few good comic moments, & thankfully the film is only 62 minutes long. fair production values. Rating ** 60 points IMDB 5
