Old Man Yells At Self

February 13, 2023 2:47 PM

Sometimes it's hard to fully comprehend what you're witnessing. Aired in the middle of the night earlier this year on TCM, in accord with some arcane agreement, we get The Dick Tracy Special: Dick Zooms In [27m20s], which features Ben Mankiewicz, Leonard Maltin, Dick Tracy, and eventually Warren Beatty discussing the 1990 film Dick Tracy, which was directed by, written by, and starred Beatty. For a bit of background, there's more inside.

Polygon give the background on this rather peculiar movie channel offering.

The first Dick Tracy Special from 2010, I think. [30m]

Patrick (H) Willems spends 45 minutes telling you about Dick Tracy: The Most Bonkers Comic Movie Ever

posted by hippybear (26 comments total)

I once urinated next to Beatty at a MeFite meetup. True story.
posted by dobbs at 3:28 PM on February 13, 2023 [14 favorites]

Thank you for this. At the time, I was a little bewildered, because I was a kid who knew Dick Tracy from daily comic strips but I didn't understand camp yet and I couldn't express how weird all the colors were and how upsetting the villains' faces were. I had to stop watching and leave after "the bath," which probably looks ridiculous now.

A few years ago I read some old Dick Tracy strips which were actually really good, and on the strength of that I bought a book of them. Big mistake. Boy, were they racist.
posted by Countess Elena at 3:29 PM on February 13, 2023 [11 favorites]

The songs were fucking great. I have the songbook (or had). Performed one in front of an audience even.

My impression of the movie is that everything about it that was not related to Warren Beatty was excellent. Anything involving Warren Beatty sucked.
posted by seanmpuckett at 3:52 PM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

So being both a film nerd and a comics nerd, I saw TCM was showing Dick Tracy movies on Friday and didn't think much of it. After all, the other week the channel was showing Nancy Drew movies. I saw that Boris Karloff was in Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome so we DVR'ed that and moved on to watching something else.

Then I wake up on Saturday and everyone is talking about Dick Tracy on Twitter (for a broad definition of "everyone"). Now, I think watching TCM on a Friday night is super cool but I doubted that's what most people were doing so I was confused.

Somehow I missed this. I just wanted to watch some old Dick Tracy movies.
posted by edencosmic at 3:54 PM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

The songs were fucking great.

There were, as far as I know, three albums produced related to this film. Madonna's I'm Breathless is the most famous, containing all the Sondheim songs and also Vogue and her having fun with sampling technology here and there. There was also the Dick Tracy Soundtrack album which was a few songs from the movie and other songs inspired by the movie, much like Madonna's album. And finally there was the Danny Elfman score, which was orchestral and one of his more interesting less Burton-esque scores to that point in his career.
posted by hippybear at 4:06 PM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

Possible erratum: it just now occurs to me I may have been thinking of the time I got a collection of Little Orphan Annie strips for the same reason. Also incredibly racist! But no, I'm pretty sure that just happened twice. Haven't bought an old comics collection in a while, outside of Pogo and Krazy Kat.
posted by Countess Elena at 4:24 PM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

I remember the hype for this movie and even bought a Dick Tracy t-shirt before it came out but I've never actually seen the film. I don't think I would have paid attention to bad reviews because most of the movies I was interested in would have had bad reviews anyway but something has kept me from seeing this film. I guess I should be thankful to whatever it is.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 4:35 PM on February 13, 2023

A few years ago I read some old Dick Tracy strips which were actually really good, and on the strength of that I bought a book of them. Big mistake. Boy, were they racist.

Yeah, same deal for a lot of the most popular newspaper comics. Dick Tracy was occasionally written really well, and there are long periods without overt racism. But I had this same realization when I bought a volume of I think Captain Easy and Wash Tubbs for my mom. Or maybe it was Terry and the Pirates. But within a few pages it was some racist caricature. Winsor McCay's work (Little Nemo, etc) exemplifies the same.

It's hard to escape from that era of comics... unfortunately Tintin is among them as well. The greatest loss of all.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 4:43 PM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

krazy kat isn't great either, in particular the chinese characters. I do appreciate the complexity around kats race and gender though.

Nancy and peanuts hold up pretty well, though they are both racist by omission.
posted by jonbro at 4:51 PM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

If nobody gets eaten alive by rats it ain't Dick Tracy.

I don't make the rules.
posted by East14thTaco at 4:51 PM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

Holy cow. That was amazing. I saw that it was playing on TCM the other night, but didn't realize it was THIS - figured it was some sort of Tracy retrospective.

Beatty's reason for making this Zoom feature? Beats me - but it was fun.

As for the 1990 movie - yep, some flaws - but it was utterly unique and wonderful in so many ways. And...I saw that movie twice in one day - each time with a different date :-D
posted by davidmsc at 5:51 PM on February 13, 2023

This special is a delight. Now I really want to see a we're-getting-too-old-for-this-shit buddy action comedy with Beatty and Harrison Ford.

I had a friend who worked in streetmosphere in the early days of the Disney-MGM Studios park, and they were reeally banking on Dick Tracy being another Batman.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 5:54 PM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

I will go to bat for the film. It's lively, the songs are great, the cast just goes all-in. And I'll always have a soft spot for movies that are just a visual feast.

And I'll recommend the tie-in comic by Kyle Baker every chance I get...even if Beatty made the process of creating it a little difficult.
posted by MrBadExample at 6:44 PM on February 13, 2023 [4 favorites]

....peanuts hold up pretty well, though (it's) racist by omission.

*cough*Franklin*cough* (Yeah, he was never elevated past supporting character status, but still...)

And while I admittedly do quite a bit of fast-forwarding, I still click on (the 1990) Dick Tracy on the DVR from time to time. (Have to keep reminding myself that's Mandy Patinkin playing 88 Keys).
posted by gtrwolf at 6:54 PM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

Beatty's reason for making this Zoom feature? Beats me - but it was fun.

Almost certainly so Beatty can retain the rights to Dick Tracy. Rights option agreements typically have a "use it or lose it" clause requiring the licensee to actually develop a project with the rights or else they revert back to the original owner. That's why you'll sometimes read about bizarre cheapo rushed productions of films/shows that appear and disappear almost instantly; they're the rights holder meeting the minimum requirements of their option agreements to hold onto the rights.

And I'll always have a soft spot for movies that are just a visual feast.

The film really is gorgeous and made with tremendous love and care. Shame it's not any good.
posted by star gentle uterus at 7:23 PM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

Really, if nothing else, doing Dick Tracy opened up a whole late career reblossoming for Al Pachino. He'd been stuck doing sort of the same thing for a while, and him suddenly doing this role, hiding behind hideous makeup, really seemed to free his soul. I'm not sure if we get a The Devil's Advocate without Dick Tracy.
posted by hippybear at 7:26 PM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

He'd been stuck doing sort of the same thing for a while, and him suddenly doing this role, hiding behind hideous makeup, really seemed to free his soul.

I don't think this is true at all. After exhausting himself on the production of Scarface, he decided to concentrate on theatre and helped start The Mirror Theatre (along with Paul Newman and Dustin Hoffman) and he did American Buffalo and other productions.

88 he started shooting Sea of Love and 89 Godfather III and then Dick Tracy.

He discusses the 80s theatre works in his conversations with Lawrence Grobel. I believe he even mentions always going back to the theatre after lengthy film productions in his Playboy interview with Grobel in the late 70s. Certainly Serpico would have counted as trying work.
posted by dobbs at 8:04 PM on February 13, 2023 [4 favorites]

If Beatty really loves the character, I can understand him wanting to hold onto it. If I had the rights for Super Mario, I'd put on the overalls and red hat once a decade and film something cheap and weird to hang on to him.
posted by Servo5678 at 8:05 PM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

Maybe it's important to mention that Dick Tracy and Super Mario Bros came out within a few years of each other. People were shooting for the stars in all kind of strange ways back then. The Abyss was only a year prior, and Terminator 2 was the following year, so doing all this stuff in camera was soon to disappear nearly entirely.
posted by hippybear at 8:10 PM on February 13, 2023

I think I'd rather rewatch Clint Eastwood lecturing an empty chair.
posted by not_on_display at 8:52 PM on February 13, 2023

If I had the rights for Super Mario, I'd put on the overalls and red hat once a decade and film something cheap and weird to hang on to him.

(Nintendo overprotectiveness Nintensifies)
posted by BiggerJ at 4:09 AM on February 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

Certainly Serpico would have counted as trying work

Should be Scarface.
posted by dobbs at 7:29 AM on February 14, 2023

Really, if nothing else, doing Dick Tracy opened up a whole late career reblossoming for Al Pacino.

One of his lines was one of the few things I remember about it - his character was in the middle of doing something (I think he was trying to subdue one of the women, ew); but suddenly he pauses and says, "wait, I'm having a thought....I'm having a thought...." and after a beat, he says, "...it passed," and goes back to whatever he was doing.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:35 AM on February 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

The Beatty Dick Tracy film was also recently the inspiration for the excellent video for Babushka Boi by A$AP Rocky.
posted by Theiform at 9:34 AM on February 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

I love this movie! I saw it opening night, with the ticket t-shirt and everything. I've started watching it again during the pandemic and it's really aged pretty well.
posted by rhizome at 2:52 PM on February 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

I also have a ticket t-shirt. It's still wearable and I still wear it from time to time.
posted by hippybear at 2:57 PM on February 16, 2023 [2 favorites]