Dick Tracy (film)
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| Dick Tracy | |
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 Dick Tracy poster |
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| Directed by | Warren Beatty |
| Produced by | Warren Beatty |
| Written by | Chester Gould (characters) Jim Cash Jack Epps Jr. |
| Starring | Warren Beatty Madonna Al Pacino Dustin Hoffman Charlie Korsmo Glenne Headly and Dick Van Dyke |
| Music by | Danny Elfman |
| Distributed by | Buena Vista International |
| Release date(s) | June 15, 1990 |
| Running time | 105 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $47,000,000 US (est.) |
| IMDb profile | |
Dick Tracy is a 1990 film based upon the Dick Tracy comic strip character created by Chester Gould. The film was directed by Warren Beatty, and originally released in cinemas by Touchstone Pictures. Beatty also starred as the iconic square-jawed detective. Co-stars included Madonna, Charlie Korsmo, Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, and Glenne Headly as well as numerous cameo appearances by famous actors and actresses (including Mandy Patinkin as pianist 88 Keys, Colm Meaney as a beatcop, and TV legend Dick Van Dyke in an unusual role as the corrupt District Attorney Fletcher).
The film won an Academy Award for Best Art Direction, Best Makeup and Best Music, Original Song (Stephen Sondheim) for "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)". It was also nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Al Pacino), Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, and Best Sound.
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[edit] Plot
The main storyline of the film is Dick Tracy's efforts to bring down Big Boy Caprice's (Pacino) gangster empire and the search for a mystery assassin known as The Blank. A secondary storyline follows Tracy's romances with Tess Trueheart (Headly) and Breathless Mahoney (Madonna). The third sub-plot is Tracy's rescuing a young orphan boy, The Kid (Korsmo), who looks up to Tracy as a father figure. All this becomes quickly tangled when Tracy finds himself framed for the murder of Chicago's beloved (although corrupt) District Attorney (Van Dyke), and Caprice's empire begins to take over the city itself.
[edit] Filming
The film has a very distinctive look due to its use of only six colors; red, blue, yellow, green, orange and purple, plus black and white. These were the original six colors used in the comic strip and was done to create a "cartoon" look. The cinematography by Vittorio Storaro gives the film a captivating atmosphere, aided by Danny Elfman's score.
Costing $35 million to make, with an additional 12 million in advertising, it made over $100,000,000 at the U.S. box office and spawned a large marketing and merchandising campaign.
[edit] Cast
- Warren Beatty as Dick Tracy
- Al Pacino as Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice
- Glenne Headly as Tess Trueheart
- Madonna as Breathless Mahoney
- Charlie Korsmo as The Kid (Dick Tracy, Jr.)
- William Forsythe as Flattop Jones
- James Caan as Spud Spaldoni
- Dustin Hoffman as Mumbles
- Paul Sorvino as Lips Manlis
- Dick Van Dyke as District Attorney Fletcher
- Mandy Patinkin as 88 Keys
- Colm Meaney as crooked cop Baxter
- Estelle Parsons as Mrs. Trueheart
- Henry Silva as Influence
- Ed O'Ross as Itchy
- Lawrence Steven Meyers as Little Face
[edit] Trivia
- Al Pacino actually designed Big Boy Caprice's make-up himself and completely re-imagined the character, who was originally big and fat in the comics with a little nose. Caprice's resulting film counterpart is of average height with enlarged hands, nose, and cheekbones, hence his street name.
- In Tom Mankiewicz's original script, the main, and only, villain of the film was to be the Blank, with Flattop Jones as the supporting villain in a side-plot. It opens up with a policeman dying as a sketch artist draws a sketch of his killer: a figure with no face. The cop says "That's him!" and dies. Chester Gould loved the idea and tried to get the project started with MGM in 1983, but he died shortly after, which caused the film to be shelved.
- Jack Nicholson and Robert de Niro were considered for and offered the role of Dick Tracy. Nicholson was committed to playing the Joker in the 1989 film Batman, and de Niro refused the role for fear of being typecast as a grim, hardened tough guy similar to his Travis Bickle character in Taxi Driver.
- James Caan, an actor friend of Warren Beatty, appears in the film as mobster Spud Spaldoni. Dustin Hoffman made a cameo as Mumbles as a favor for Beatty.
- Tim Burton was offered a chance to direct, but he chose to direct Edward Scissorhands instead. His longtime collaborator Danny Elfman did score the film, but described working with director Warren Beatty as "insane."[1]
- Dick Van Dyke, who only worked on the film for three days, broke his shoulder when he was shooting the scene where his character is murdered by The Blank. That take was the one that was eventually used in the film.
- When Beatty came on board the project as a producer, he only agreed to direct if he could play the title role, which the studio was having difficulties casting. He got his wish, as Bob Fosse had refused to direct and nobody wanted to play Tracy.
- Martin Scorsese was also a fan of the comics and considered directing at one point, but he lost interest and chose to helm Goodfellas.
- Of all the villains, "Numbers" Norton (played by James Tolkan) was the only one created for the film. The following are villains that appear in the film. Warren Beatty wanted as many as possible included as a measure in case the movie did not get a sequel:
- William "The Rodent" Wilson [2] (originally Rhodent)
- Shoulders
- "Stooge" Villers (originally Viller)
- The Brow
- "Littleface" Finny
- "Lips" Manlis (originally Manlus)
- Jake "Itchy" Rossi [3] (originally Itchell Oliver)
- "Flattop" Jones
- Mumbles
- Al "Big Boy" Caprice
- Steve the Tramp
- The Blank (has a different identity in the comic)
- Patricia "Breathless" Mahoney [4]
- Lorenzo "Pruneface" Prunesti [5]
- Influence (originally The Influence)
- Johnny Ramm (The movie and its credits never specify which of a group of anonymous mob bosses is him, but it is clearly stated that he is one of them and thus he appears on screen, even if not clearly identified.)
- Texie Garcia
- Ribs Mocca (originally Mocco)
- Ben "Spud" Spaldoni
- 88 Keys (originally Keyes)
It is also worth noting that the villains have an infrastructure in this film (i.e. Big Boy is the boss of Flattop and Itchy, Lips Manlis is the boss of the five card-playing villains in the beginning), unlike in the comic where villains each arose and fought Tracy one-by-one in a fashion largely independent of each other with no hierarchy.
[edit] Notes
- ^ November, 1993 Movieline
- ^ Dick Tracy Action Figure Card, Playmates, 1990.
- ^ ibid
- ^ Dick Tracy True Hearts & Tommy Guns Comic Series, AW Publishing, 1990.
- ^ ibid
