I just watched the four episodes of Dick Tracy available on DVD from Alpha Video. I'd read reviews of this early TV series which described it as an ultra-low budget affair and I got what I expected - and more. This is a very low budget series, but I quickly found myself hooked. The ongoing storyline from episode to episode is enjoyably addictive. I was sad when I finally reached the end of the last episode on the DVD. I wanted more. I'd love to see what happens next! Ralph Byrd is terrific as Dick Tracy. He's honest, brave, and fair. There's good chemistry between Tracy and his partner Pat too. The "live" vibe of this show is another plus. These episodes provide a fascinating glimpse at early 1950's television. I just wish there were more episodes available. We need more of this Dick Tracy TV series on DVD!
3 Reviews
They left out Vitamin Flintheart
F Gwynplaine MacIntyre13 December 2002
Ralph Byrd was a leading-man type who was a little bit talented and a little bit good-looking, but not a great deal of either: he got about as far as his looks and talent merited. He had the good luck to get cast as Chester Gould's comic-strip character Dick Tracy: with his sharp nose and strong profile, Byrd resembled Dick Tracy about as much as it was humanly possible for any flesh-and-blood human being to look like Dick Tracy without plastic surgery. (Morgan Conway, another actor who played Dick Tracy, looked nothing at all like the face in the comic strips.)
In the early days of television, after his film career had stalled, Byrd attempted to revive his most successful role in a cheapjack low-budget TV series. Commendably, Byrd was aware of his obligation to depict Dick Tracy as a role model for the children who were his target audience. In this series, the villains are always punished, and violence is kept to a minimum. Unfortunately, it's not replaced with anything more interesting: every episode contains a long dialogue scene in which Dick Tracy and this week's villain just stand there jawing at each other. Of course, if ever there was a hero who could subdue villains with only his jaw, Dick Tracy's the one.
Apart from its low budget and bad scripts, this series suffers drastically from the fact that the distinctive villains in Chester Gould's comic strip are so physically grotesque that it's nearly impossible for any flesh-and-blood actor (short of Lon Chaney) to impersonate them on screen. One of the most memorable villains in the 'Dick Tracy' comic strip was Heels Beals, a midget who smuggled jewellery in the hollowed-out heels of his platform shoes. In 'Dick Tracy', Heels Beals is played by Billy Benedict, a normal-sized actor. He still smuggles jewels in the heels of his platform shoes ... but, when worn by an actor of normal height, the platform heels look ludicrous rather than grotesque. In the comic strip, Heels Beals died a slow agonising death from thirst and exposure, trapped inside a giant soda bottle (part of an advertising display). Heels's death was memorably played out over several weeks of Gould's daily and Sunday strips. But there's nothing so grotesque or ironic as that death scene in any episode of 'Dick Tracy' the TV series.
The most famous of Dick Tracy's villains was Flattop, named for the aircraft carriers that got so much publicity during the wartime years of this strip. Before the days of digital photography F/X, it would have been impossible to replicate Flattop's distinctive cranial deformity on a flesh-and-blood actor. Here in the TV series 'Dick Tracy', Flattop is played by John Cliff (who?), a physically normal (and very untalented) actor who appears to have a manhole cover glued to the top of his skull, and hair glued over it to cover the join. We're told that Flattop works for a crime boss named Namgib ... 'Bigman' spelt backwards, geddit?
Several different classic villains from Gould's strip are all portrayed here (interchangeably) by Lyle Talbot in various episodes, and the role of the Mole (he's that guy in the hole) is grossly miscast with veteran character actor Raymond Hatton. (Too bad they couldn't get RONDO Hatton.)
In one episode, Tracy gets locked in a steamer trunk, and the villain keeps threatening to pump cyanide gas into it. (But never gets round to doing so, of course.) The camera set-ups of Byrd, ostensibly inside a tiny steamer trunk, are unintentionally funny.
This TV series is well-intentioned but slow and boring, with bad dialogue and almost no action at all. It doesn't even attain a campy Ed Wood-style level of 'so bad it's good'. It's just BAD. Skip this TV show and get a video of 'Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome', starring Boris Karloff.
In the early days of television, after his film career had stalled, Byrd attempted to revive his most successful role in a cheapjack low-budget TV series. Commendably, Byrd was aware of his obligation to depict Dick Tracy as a role model for the children who were his target audience. In this series, the villains are always punished, and violence is kept to a minimum. Unfortunately, it's not replaced with anything more interesting: every episode contains a long dialogue scene in which Dick Tracy and this week's villain just stand there jawing at each other. Of course, if ever there was a hero who could subdue villains with only his jaw, Dick Tracy's the one.
Apart from its low budget and bad scripts, this series suffers drastically from the fact that the distinctive villains in Chester Gould's comic strip are so physically grotesque that it's nearly impossible for any flesh-and-blood actor (short of Lon Chaney) to impersonate them on screen. One of the most memorable villains in the 'Dick Tracy' comic strip was Heels Beals, a midget who smuggled jewellery in the hollowed-out heels of his platform shoes. In 'Dick Tracy', Heels Beals is played by Billy Benedict, a normal-sized actor. He still smuggles jewels in the heels of his platform shoes ... but, when worn by an actor of normal height, the platform heels look ludicrous rather than grotesque. In the comic strip, Heels Beals died a slow agonising death from thirst and exposure, trapped inside a giant soda bottle (part of an advertising display). Heels's death was memorably played out over several weeks of Gould's daily and Sunday strips. But there's nothing so grotesque or ironic as that death scene in any episode of 'Dick Tracy' the TV series.
The most famous of Dick Tracy's villains was Flattop, named for the aircraft carriers that got so much publicity during the wartime years of this strip. Before the days of digital photography F/X, it would have been impossible to replicate Flattop's distinctive cranial deformity on a flesh-and-blood actor. Here in the TV series 'Dick Tracy', Flattop is played by John Cliff (who?), a physically normal (and very untalented) actor who appears to have a manhole cover glued to the top of his skull, and hair glued over it to cover the join. We're told that Flattop works for a crime boss named Namgib ... 'Bigman' spelt backwards, geddit?
Several different classic villains from Gould's strip are all portrayed here (interchangeably) by Lyle Talbot in various episodes, and the role of the Mole (he's that guy in the hole) is grossly miscast with veteran character actor Raymond Hatton. (Too bad they couldn't get RONDO Hatton.)
In one episode, Tracy gets locked in a steamer trunk, and the villain keeps threatening to pump cyanide gas into it. (But never gets round to doing so, of course.) The camera set-ups of Byrd, ostensibly inside a tiny steamer trunk, are unintentionally funny.
This TV series is well-intentioned but slow and boring, with bad dialogue and almost no action at all. It doesn't even attain a campy Ed Wood-style level of 'so bad it's good'. It's just BAD. Skip this TV show and get a video of 'Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome', starring Boris Karloff.
Not what I remembered
TC-423 July 2000
I am very familiar with the 4 top quality Dick Tracy movie serials from 1937 to 1941. I have them all on tape and watch them occasionally. It is too bad that not all serials were that good. Now we come to the tv show of the same name made in 1951. I remember seeing it on tv when I was a small child when it was first on. I thought that they were okay. However I have bought some copies of the show and cannot believe how awful they were. Ralph Byrd lowered himself to cheap sets and just have conversation with his men. I have never seen anything of lower budget than this. I guess that filmed tv shows of the early fifties had a long way to go before any kind of quality came in.
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