Dick Tracy (1990 film)
Dick Tracy is a 1990 American action crime film based on the 1930s comic strip character of the same name created by Chester Gould. Warren Beatty produced, directed and starred in the film, whose supporting cast includes Al Pacino, Madonna, Glenne Headly and Charlie Korsmo, with appearances by Dustin Hoffman, James Keane, Charles Durning, William Forsythe, Seymour Cassel, Mandy Patinkin, Catherine O’Hara, Ed O'Ross, James Caan, James Tolkan and Dick Van Dyke. Dick Tracy depicts the detective's romantic relationships with Breathless Mahoney and Tess Trueheart, as well as his conflicts with crime boss Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice and his henchmen. Tracy also begins fostering a young street urchin named Kid.
Dick Tracy
Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty
- Touchstone Pictures
- Silver Screen Partners IV
- Mulholland Productions
- June 14, 1990 (Lake Buena Vista)
- June 15, 1990
105 minutes[1]
United States
English
$46 million[2]
$162.7 million[3]
Development of the film began in the early 1980s with Tom Mankiewicz assigned to write the script. The screenplay was written by Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr.. The project also went through directors Steven Spielberg, John Landis, Walter Hill and Richard Benjamin before the arrival of Beatty. It was filmed mainly at Universal Studios. Danny Elfman was hired to compose the score, and the film's music was featured on three separate soundtrack albums.
Dick Tracy premiered at the Uptown Theater in Washington, D.C., June 10, 1990, and was released nationwide a day later. Reviews ranged from favorable to mixed, with positive comments on the performances (particularly Pacino and Madonna), production design, make up effects, music, and Beatty's direction, but negative ones on the screenplay and characterization. The film was a success at the box office and with several award committees. It garnered seven Academy Award nominations, winning in three of the categories: Best Original Song, Best Makeup and Best Art Direction.[4] Dick Tracy is remembered today for its visual style.
Plot[edit]
In 1938,[5][6] at an illegal card game, a 10-year-old street urchin witnesses the massacre of a group of mobsters at the hands of Flattop and Itchy, two of the hoods on the payroll of Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice. Big Boy's crime syndicate is aggressively taking over small businesses in the city. Detective Dick Tracy catches the urchin (who calls himself "Kid") in an act of petty theft. After rescuing him from a ruthless host, Tracy temporarily adopts him with the help of his girlfriend, Tess Trueheart.
Meanwhile, Big Boy coerces club owner Lips Manlis into signing the deed over to Club Ritz. He kills Lips with a cement overcoat (referred to onscreen as "The Bath") and steals his girlfriend, the seductive and sultry singer Breathless Mahoney. When Lips is reported missing, Tracy interrogates his three hired guns, Flattop, Itchy, and Mumbles, then goes to the club to arrest Big Boy for Lips's murder. Breathless is the only witness. Instead of providing testimony, she unsuccessfully attempts to seduce Tracy. Big Boy cannot be indicted and is released from jail. Big Boy's next move is to try bringing other criminals, including Spud Spaldoni, Pruneface, Influence, Texie Garcia, Ribs Mocca, and Numbers, together under his leadership. Spaldoni refuses and is killed with a carbomb, leaving Dick Tracy, who discovered the meeting and was attempting to spy on it, wondering what is going on. The next day, Big Boy and his henchmen kidnap Tracy and attempt to bribe him; Tracy rebuffs them, prompting the criminals to attempt to kill him by causing the boiler to explode. However, Tracy is saved by Kid, who is then bestowed by the police with an honorary detective certificate, which will remain temporary until he decides on a legitimate name for himself.
Breathless shows up at Tracy's apartment, once again in an attempt to seduce him. Tracy allows her to kiss him. Tess witnesses this scene and eventually leaves town. Tracy leads a seemingly unsuccessful raid on Club Ritz, but it is actually a diversion so that Officer "Bug" Bailey can enter the building to operate a secretly installed listening device to listen in on Big Boy's criminal activities. The resultant raids all but wipe out Big Boy's criminal empire. However, Big Boy discovers Bug and captures him for a trap planned by Influence and Pruneface to kill Tracy in the warehouse. In the resulting gun battle, a stranger with no face called "The Blank" steps out of the shadows to save Tracy after he is cornered, and kills Pruneface. Influence escapes as Tracy rescues Bug from the fate that befell Lips Manlis, and Big Boy is enraged to hear that The Blank foiled the hit. Tracy again attempts to extract the testimony from Breathless that he needs to put Big Boy away. She agrees to testify only if Tracy agrees to give in to her advances. Tess eventually has a change of heart, but before she can tell Tracy, she is kidnapped by The Blank, with the help of Big Boy's club piano player, 88 Keys. Tracy is drugged and rendered unconscious by The Blank, then framed for murdering the corrupt District Attorney John Fletcher, whereupon he is detained by the police. The Kid, meanwhile, adopts the name "Dick Tracy, Jr."
Big Boy's business thrives until The Blank frames him for Tess' kidnapping. Released by his colleagues on New Year's Eve, Tracy interrogates Mumbles and arrives at a gun battle outside the Club Ritz, where Big Boy's men are killed or captured by Tracy and the police. Abandoning his crew, Big Boy flees to a drawbridge and ties Tess to its gears before he is confronted by Tracy. Their fight is halted when The Blank appears and holds both men at gunpoint, offering to share the city with Tracy after Big Boy is dead. When Junior arrives, Big Boy takes advantage of the distraction and opens fire before Tracy sends him falling to his death in the bridge's gears, while Junior rescues Tess. Mortally wounded, The Blank is unmasked to reveal Breathless Mahoney, who kisses Tracy before dying. All charges against Tracy are dropped.
Later, Tracy proposes to Tess but is interrupted by the report of a robbery in progress. He leaves her with the ring before he and Dick Tracy, Jr., depart to respond to the robbery.
Main characters
Law enforcement
The mob
Others
Estelle Parsons portrays Tess Trueheart's mother. Tony Epper plays Steve the Tramp. Hamilton Camp appears as a store owner, and Bing Russell plays a Club Ritz patron. Robert Costanzo has a cameo as Lips Manlis's bodyguard, and Marshall Bell briefly appears as a goon of Big Boy Caprice who poses as an arresting officer to ensnare Lips. Allen Garfield, John Schuck and Charles Fleischer make cameos as reporters. Walker Edmiston, John Moschitta Jr. and Neil Ross provide the voices of each radio announcer. Colm Meaney appears as a police officer at Tess Trueheart's home. Mike Mazurki (who played Splitface in the original Dick Tracy film) appears in a small cameo, as Old Man at Hotel. 93-year-old veteran character actor Ian Wolfe plays his last film role as "Munger".
Production[edit]
Development[edit]
Beatty had a concept for a Dick Tracy film in 1975. At the time, the film rights were owned by Michael Laughlin, who gave up his option from Tribune Media Services after he was unsuccessful in pitching Dick Tracy to Hollywood studios. Floyd Mutrux and Art Linson purchased the film rights from the Tribune in 1977,[7] and, in 1980, United Artists became interested in financing and distributing Dick Tracy. Tom Mankiewicz was under negotiations to write the script, based on his previous success with Superman and Superman II. The deal fell through when Chester Gould, creator of the Dick Tracy comic strip, insisted on strict financial and artistic control.[8]
That same year, Mutrux and Linson eventually took the property to Paramount Pictures, which began developing screenplays, offered Steven Spielberg the director's position, and brought in Universal Pictures to co-finance. Universal put John Landis forward as a candidate for director, courted Clint Eastwood for the title role, and commissioned Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr. to write the screenplay. "Before we were brought on, there were several failed scripts at Universal," reflected Epps, "then it went dormant, but John Landis was interested in Dick Tracy, and he brought us in to write it."[9] Cash and Epps' simple orders from Landis were to write the script in a 1930s pulp magazine atmosphere, and center it with Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice as the primary villain. For research, Epps read every Dick Tracy comic strip from 1930 to 1957. The writers wrote two drafts for Landis; Max Allan Collins, then-writer of the Dick Tracy comic strip, remembers reading one of them. "It was terrible. The only positive thing about it was a thirties setting and lots of great villains, but the story was paper-thin and it was uncomfortably campy."[9]
In addition to Beatty and Eastwood, other actors considered for the lead role included Harrison Ford, Richard Gere, Tom Selleck and Mel Gibson.[10] Landis left Dick Tracy following the controversial on-set accident on Twilight Zone: The Movie, in which three actors were killed.[9] Walter Hill came on board to direct, with Joel Silver as producer. Cash and Epps wrote another draft, and Hill approached Warren Beatty for the title role. Pre-production had progressed as far as set building, but the film was stalled when artistic control issues arose with Beatty, a fan of the Dick Tracy comic strip.[11] Hill wanted to make the film violent and realistic, while Beatty envisioned a stylized homage to the 1930s comic strip.[7] The actor also reportedly wanted $5 million, plus fifteen percent of the box-office gross, a deal that Universal refused to accept.[11]
Hill and Beatty left the film, which Paramount began developing as a lower-budget project, with Richard Benjamin directing. Cash and Epps continued to rewrite the script, but Universal was unsatisfied. The film rights eventually reverted to Tribune Media Services in 1985. However, Beatty decided to option the Dick Tracy rights for $3 million,[12] along with the Cash/Epps script. When Jeffrey Katzenberg and Michael Eisner moved from Paramount to the Walt Disney Studios, Dick Tracy resurfaced, with Beatty as director, producer and leading man.[11] Katzenberg considered hiring Martin Scorsese to direct the film,[13] but changed his mind. "It never occurred to me to direct the movie," Beatty admitted, "but finally, like most of the movies that I direct, when the time comes to do it, I just do it because it's easier than going through what I'd have to go through to get somebody else to do it."[11]
Beatty's reputation for directorial profligacy, notably with the critically acclaimed Reds, did not sit well with Disney.[11] As a result, Beatty and Disney reached a contracted agreement, whereby any budget overruns on Dick Tracy would be deducted from Beatty's fee as producer, director and star.[14] Beatty and regular collaborator Bo Goldman significantly rewrote the dialogue, but lost a Writers Guild arbitration and did not receive screen credit.[7]
Disney greenlit Dick Tracy in 1988 under the condition that Beatty keep the production budget within $25 million.[7] Beatty's fee was $7 million, against 15% of the gross (once the distributor's gross reached $50 million).[12] Costs began to rise when filming started, and quickly jumped to $30 million.[15] Its total negative cost ended up being $46.5 million ($35.6 million of direct expenditure, $5.3 million in studio overhead and $5.6 million in interest).[12] Disney spent an additional $48.1 million on advertising and publicity, and $5.8 million on prints, resulting in a total of $101 million spent overall.[12] The financing for Dick Tracy came from Disney and Silver Screen Partners IV, as well as Beatty's own production company, Mulholland Productions. Disney was initially going to release the film under the traditional Walt Disney Pictures banner,[16] but instead chose to release and market the film under the adult-oriented Touchstone Pictures label leading up to the film's theatrical debut, because the studio felt it had too many mature themes for a Disney-branded film.[17]
Casting[edit]
Although Al Pacino was Beatty's first choice for the role of Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice, Robert De Niro was under consideration.[18] Michelle Pfeiffer, Kathleen Turner and Kim Basinger were too expensive to cast as Breathless Mahoney. Sharon Stone auditioned for the role, but she was turned down.[19][20] Madonna pursued the part of Breathless Mahoney, offering to work for scale.[21] Her resulting paycheck for the film was just $35,000.[7] Sean Young claims she was forced out of the role of Tess Trueheart (which eventually went to Glenne Headly) after rebuffing sexual advances from Beatty. In a 1989 statement, Beatty said, "I made a mistake casting Sean Young in the part and I felt very badly about it."[22] Mike Mazurki, who had appeared in the earlier Dick Tracy film, had a cameo. Beatty approached Gene Hackman to do a cameo in the film, but he declined.[23]
Filming[edit]
Principal photography for Dick Tracy began February 2, 1989.[24] The filmmakers considered shooting the film on-location in Chicago, but production designer Richard Sylbert believed Dick Tracy would work better using sound stages and backlots[25] at Universal Studios in Universal City, California.[24] Other filming took place at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank.[26] In total, 53 interior and 25 exterior sets were constructed. Beatty, being a perfectionist, often filmed dozens of takes of every scene.[24]
As filming continued, Disney and Max Allan Collins conflicted over the novelization. The studio rejected his manuscript: "I wound up doing an eleventh hour rewrite that was more faithful to the screenplay, even while I made it much more consistent with the strip," Collins continued, "and fixed as many plot holes as I could."[24] Disney did not like this version either, but accepted based on Beatty's insistence to incorporate some of Collins' writing into the shooting script, which solved the plot hole concerns. Through post-production dubbing, some of Collins's dialogue was also incorporated into the film. Principal photography for Dick Tracy ended in May 1989.[24] The film's production also marks the last known use of the sodium vapor process (occasionally referred to as yellowscreen).[27]
Design[edit]
Early in the development of Dick Tracy, Beatty decided to make the film using a palette limited to just seven colors — primarily red, green, blue and yellow — to evoke the film's comic strip origins. Furthermore, each of the colors was to be exactly the same shade. Beatty's design team included production designer Richard Sylbert, set decorator Rick Simpson, cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (with whom Beatty had worked on his previous film, Ishtar, as producer and lead actor), visual effects supervisors Michael Lloyd and Harrison Ellenshaw, prosthetic makeup designers John Caglione Jr. and Doug Drexler, and costume designer Milena Canonero. Their main intention was to stay close to Chester Gould's original drawings from the 1930s. Other influences came from the Art Deco movement and German Expressionism.[28]
For Storaro, the limited color palette was the most challenging aspect of production. "These are not the kind of colors the audience is used to seeing," he noted. "These are much more dramatic in strength, in saturation. Comic strip art is usually done with very simple and primitive ideas and emotions," Storaro theorized. "One of the elements is that the story is usually told in vignette, so what we tried to do is never move the camera at all. Never. Try to make everything work into the frame."[10] For the matte paintings, Ellenshaw and Lloyd executed over 57 paintings on glass, which were then optically combined with the live action. For a brief sequence in which The Kid dashes in front of a speeding locomotive, only 150 feet (46 m) of real track was laid; the train was a 2-foot (0.61 m) scale model, and the surrounding trainyard a matte painting.[25] The film was one of the last major American studio blockbusters to have no computer-generated imagery.
Caglione and Drexler were recommended for the prosthetic makeup designs by Canonero, with whom they had worked on The Cotton Club. The rogues gallery makeup designs were taken directly from Gould's drawings,[29] with the exception of Al Pacino (Big Boy Caprice), who improvised his own design, ignoring the rather overweight character of the strip.[25] His makeup took 3.5 hours to apply.[30]
Home media release[edit]
The film was released on VHS December 18, 1990. It was first released on DVD in Europe in 2000, but domestic release in the U.S. was delayed until April 2, 2002, and without any special features. Shortly after the U.S. DVD release, rumors circulated on the Internet that Warren Beatty had planned to release a director's cut under Disney's "Vista Series" label; including at least ten extra minutes of footage.[81] As of 1992, Dick Tracy sold 1 million copies in the U.S., according to The Hollywood Reporter.[82]
The Blu-ray was released in the U.S. and Canada December 11, 2012. This release lacked special features, save for a digital copy.[83]
Possible sequel and legal issues[edit]
Disney had hoped Dick Tracy would launch a successful franchise, like the Indiana Jones series, but Disney halted plans.[2] In addition, executive producers Art Linson and Floyd Mutrux sued Beatty shortly after the release of the film, alleging they were owed profit participation from the film.[35]
Beatty purchased the Dick Tracy film and television rights in 1985 from Tribune Media Services.[84] He took the property to Walt Disney Studios, which optioned the rights in 1988. According to Beatty, Tribune attempted to reclaim the rights in 2002, and notified Disney — but not through the process outlined in the 1985 agreement.[85] Beatty, who commented he had "a very good idea"[86] for a sequel, believed Tribune violated various notification procedures that "clouded the title"[86] to the rights, and made it "commercially impossible" for him to produce a sequel.[86] He approached Tribune in 2004 to settle the situation, but the company said it had met the conditions to get back the rights.[84]
Disney, which had no intention of producing a sequel, rejected Tribune's claim, and gave back to Beatty most of the rights in May 2005.[87] That same month, Beatty filed a lawsuit in the Los Angeles, California, Superior Court, seeking $30 million in damages against Tribune and a declaration over the rights. Bertram Fields, Beatty's lawyer, said the original 1985 agreement with Tribune was negotiated specifically to allow Beatty a chance to make another Dick Tracy film. "It was very carefully done, and they just ignored it", he stated. "Tribune is a big, powerful company, and they think they can just run roughshod over people. They picked the wrong guy."[86]
Tribune believed the situation would be settled quickly,[88] and was confident enough to begin developing a Dick Tracy live-action television series with Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Robert Newmyer and Outlaw Productions. The TV show was to have a contemporary setting, comparable to Smallville, and Di Bonaventura commented that if the TV show was successful, a feature film would likely follow.[84] However, an August 2005 ruling by federal judge Dean D. Pregerson cleared the way for Beatty to sue Tribune.[87] The April 2006 hearing ended without a ruling,[89] but in July 2006, a Los Angeles judge ruled that the case could go to trial; Tribune's request to end the suit in their favor was rejected.[90] The legal battle between Beatty and Tribune continued.[91] By March 2009, Tribune was in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and lawyers for the company began to declare their ownership of television and film rights to Dick Tracy. "Mr. Beatty's conduct and wrongful claims have effectively locked away certain motion picture and television rights to the Dick Tracy property", lawyers for Tribune wrote in a filing.[91] Fields responded that it was "a nuisance lawsuit by a bankrupt company, and they should be ashamed of themselves."[91]
In 2010, Turner Classic Movies broadcast the Dick Tracy Special. Shot in late 2008, Beatty enlisted cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and film critic Leonard Maltin to make the 30-minute television special, which featured Beatty as Tracy in a retrospective interview with Maltin.[92][93][94] Maltin explicitly asked the fictional Tracy if Warren Beatty planned to make a sequel to the 1990 film, and he responded that he had heard about that, but Maltin needed to ask Beatty himself.[93]
On March 25, 2011, U.S. District Court Judge Dean D. Pregerson granted Beatty's request for a summary judgment, and ruled in the actor's favor. Judge Pregerson wrote in his order that "Beatty's commencement of principal photography of his television special on November 8, 2008 was sufficient for him to retain the Dick Tracy rights."[95] Beatty's lawyer said the court found that Beatty had done everything contractually required of him to keep the rights to the character.[96]
In June 2011, Beatty confirmed his intention to make a sequel to Dick Tracy, but he refused to discuss details. He said, "I'm gonna make another one [but] I think it's dumb talking about movies before you make them. I just don't do it. It gives you the perfect excuse to avoid making them." When asked when the sequel would get made, he replied, "I take so long to get around to making a movie that I don’t know when it starts."[81]
In April 2016, Beatty again mentioned the possibility of producing a sequel when he attended CinemaCon.[97]
In February 2023, Turner Classic Movies aired Dick Tracy Special: Tracy Zooms In, a 30-minute television special similar to the 2010 Dick Tracy Special. The special consists mostly of a Zoom interview, featuring Beatty appearing as both Tracy and himself, opposite Ben Mankiewicz and a returning Leonard Maltin. In it, Tracy criticizes aspects of the 1990 film adaptation to Beatty's face, and suggests that a younger actor should take over the role of Tracy. It concludes with Beatty and Tracy meeting in person, and suggesting that Dick Tracy will return in the future.[98][94]
Although there have not been any sequels in either television nor motion picture form, there have been sequels in novel form. Shortly after the release of the 1990 film, Max Allan Collins wrote Dick Tracy Goes to War. The story is set after the commencement of World War II, and involves Dick Tracy's enlistment in the U.S. Navy, working for their Military Intelligence Division (as he did in the comic strip). In the story, Nazi saboteurs Black Pearl and Mrs. Pruneface (Pruneface's widow) set up a sabotage/espionage operation out of Caprice's old headquarters in Club Ritz. For their activities, they recruit B.B. Eyes, The Mole and Shaky. Their reign of terror, culminating in an attempt to bomb a weapons plant, is averted by Tracy. A year after War was released, Collins wrote a third novel, titled Dick Tracy Meets His Match, in which Tracy finally follows through on his marriage proposal to Tess Trueheart.
Further reading