If you had given Dick Tracy's name to any police type in any movie of the forties, it would be indistinguishable. The fact is that while this is a modestly entertaining movie, the comic strip being of it is just not there. Where is the technology, the distinctive sense of the comic strip? It's just not there. There is some semblance of humor, the byplay among the other detectives and Tess's frustration with dating the great detective (she never gets to go to dinner), but it still doesn't reproduce the comic strip. All that considered, it's a decent movie with an interesting plot. Like so many Tracy characters, Split Face is carrying around his angst, wanting to get back at those who convicted him. He is nasty, but has the fatal flaw of carelessness. Tracy is pretty dull, but I was a religious reader of the comic strip as a child and liked his silence. His romantic relationship always seemed forced to me. A real comic book hero shouldn't have time for women, right.
Review of Dick Tracy
