Must See Movie...

hyped garbage

As Good As It Gets

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

DICK TRACY'S DILEMMA is my first exposure to the comic book detective and it's a good one. This is a low budget slice of pulp fiction with an emphasis on incident and action which helps the hour-long running time to simply fly past. The story sees the square-jawed detective going up against a sinister killer known only as The Claw who utilises a hook hand to murder his unsuspecting victims.It's a dark and atmospheric little piece with a simple story that really works. Ralph Byrd was an old hand at playing the part of Tracy and although he could be any generic crime-fighter he does well with the part. The best part of the film though is Jack Lambert's limping villain. Lambert comes across as a mixture of Rondo Hatton and Jack Palance and is one of the most imposing characters of the decade. James Cameron must have been a fan as scenes of Lambert slowly limping after his victims surely inspired the ending of THE TERMINATOR.The horror aspects of this low budget film work in its favour and make it a dark and brooding production. Ian Keith is on hand to supply some much-needed comic relief as the amateur Shakespeare actor Vitamin who gets involved with the case. DICK TRACY'S DILEMMA is no classic but for a B-movie it's great fun.

Ralph Byrd returns as Dick Tracy in "Dick Tracy's Dilemma," a 1947 B movie with some noirish aspects. It's fast and well-directed.Here Tracy is after a killer called The Claw, who has a hook for a hand. The plot involves stolen furs, murder, and insurance fraud.If you thought Tess had nothing to do in the Morgan Conway movies, here Tess is practically an extra. The actress, Kay Christopher, was quite different from Anne Jeffreys. Christopher's Tess is sweet, where Jeffreys had more of a worldliness - it's the ingenue versus the leading lady. I never read the comics, so I don't know which one was more like Tess.Kudos to Ian Keith, an actor I love, for his portrayal of Vitamin. He was a wonderful actor.Directed with a brisk pace by John Rawlins, who adds several nice noir touches to this one, including one brilliant shot almost at the end of the film. I won't tell you what it is. You'll know it when you see it.

***SPOILER ALERT***Dick Tracy, Ralph Byrd, is hampered in the movie by his butterfingered assistant Pat Patton, Lyle Latell,who's more of a burden to him then anything else. How Patton got a job on the police department and how he got stuck with him should be what Dick Tracy's dilemma in the film really is.After the robbery of the Flawless Furs company's warehouse it's found out that the night watchman Hawks, Jason Robars Sr, was murdered by what seems like a machete and it's decided, being that a murder is involved with the robbery, that it's a job for the great Dick Tracy. Tracy showing up at the scene of the crime finds a number of clues as well as with the help of his eyes and ears on the streets blind bagger, who's can really see, Sighless, Jimmy Conlin, that the furs are to be exchanged at the corner of Hemp Street for $20,000.00 with Longshot Lillie, Bernadene Hayle, being the fence. It's when Longshot Lillie is taken into custody that she, realizing that she may face a murder charge, tells Tracy that she's involved with this one handed wacko, he has a hook for his right hand, "The Claw" ( Jack Lambert) in the fur robbery. "The Claw" who together with his two partners Sam & Fred, Tony Barrett & Al Bridge, are really second stringers in the murder/robbery with he Big Cheese,????, planning to exploit the crime on both sides of the law. After getting the expansive furs the Big Cheese plans on selling them back, through Longshot Lillie, to the owner of Flawless Furs Mr. Humphries, Charles Mrash. It's then that the Big Cheese is to collect, through "The Claw", the $50,000.00 in insurance from the furs underwriter Peter Permium, William B. Davidson,of the Honesty Insurance Company.The movie really never takes off with Dick Tracy just gong through the motions and not as much as getting his hands dirty in the movies final confrontation between him and "The Claw" that takes place in a deserted power plant. "The Claw" himself is anything but formidable, in giving Tracy a run for the money, but just a first-class dud and screw-up in his messing up his job by first getting spotted by Sightleess, whom he ended up slicing to death, and then getting shot and wounded, as he made his escape, by the couldn't hit the broad side of a barn Pat Patton. This all happened when Tracy's partner and sidekick Patton blew any chance of getting "The Claw" by going after the dangerous hood on his own and leaving Tracy, who was totally in the dark to what Patton was up to, standing alone with a befuddled look on his face and with his famous yellow fedora in his hand.Even though the movie ended with "The Claw" getting juiced, by 33,000 bolts of electricity, the mastermind of the fur robbery and eventually insurance fraud seemed to have gotten away Scot-free since, after he gets put to sleep, were never really shown what exactly happened to him. This even though the Big Cheese identity was discovered by non other that bumbling jerk Patton, who phoned him, who didn't even have the presence of mind to remember his phone number or even have his phone traced!

While I understand that this B-movie was NOT intended to be Shakespeare or the next contender for an Oscar, it is amazing that such a horribly written and pointless film came out by RKO Studios. I would expect this sort of bad film to be instead produced by Monogram or some other poverty row studio--it was THAT bad.Why was the film so bad? Well, although the acting was just awful (with Dick Tracy being MUCH more animated in the Chester Gould comic strips), the writing is straight from the "too stupid to live school of film making". In other words, again and again and again, the characters do things that no rational person would do--showing that the script must have never been edited or even read before it was given to the actors!! Logical errors abound--so much that even Ed Wood, Jr. would say the film is bad!! Let's start by talking about Tracy's moronic sidekick, Pat. When the evil villain (The Claw) is seen running up a flight of stairs, Pat chases them and doesn't bother to tell his boss (who is standing next to him on the phone)! Now The Claw had already killed several people and was responsible for a major robbery and Pat decides to take him alone! Also, throughout the film, Pat said the most non-sensical and pointless comments that made him seem as if he was suffering from a traumatic brain injury--and so you'd think he'd be the last person you'd make a cop and give a gun!!! Well, fortunately for Pat's ego, he was not the only imbecile in the film. "Sightless" (a really awful name for a guy who pretends to be a blind beggar) finds out who is responsible for the crimes and goes to tell Tracy. But on the way, The Claw chases him and Sightless barely escapes. Sightless then goes to Tracy's home to tell him. When Tracy isn't home, Sightless just goes home--even though the killer knows who he is and already tried to kill him! Why didn't he just go to the police station and wait there? Any THINKING person would have done this! Let's continue on my rant about the brainless characters, shall we?! Next is "Vitamin". He's a hammy actor who is about a subtle in his style as a brick in the face--and he's even dumber than Sightless! When Sightless shows up at Tracy's house, Vitamin answers the door and Sightless tells him about the criminals. Vitamin totally ignores him and pushes him out the door--despite the fact that Sightless is screaming at him about murders! Then later, when Sightless goes under cover to help atone for this HUGE blunder, he seems to do a pretty good job--until he does movie cliché #47--when he's safely hiding in another room to avoid detection by The Claw, he stumbles over a trashcan and alerts the murderer of his presence!!! Not convinced that everyone in the film is stupid?! Okay,...later two of the Claw's assistants find The Claw and he looks almost dead. Instead of trying to determine if he really is dead or dying, they stand right next to him and talk about how they will betray the Claw--and then leave. Of course no one is surprised when The Claw then gets up, follows them and kills them.About the only people you don't assume are totally stupid are Tess and Tracy. Tess only has about 3 or 4 lines--so she doesn't have the opportunity to reveal her inner stupidity. As for Tracy, he's a pretty passive guy throughout most of the film and has the personality of a ball of lint. Stupid,...maybe not,...but he also doesn't seem like he's all that smart--just some dullard who is along for the ride.About the only reason I didn't give this turkey a score of 1 is that has SOME entertainment value--but not much. It's really a shame, as the first films of the series (DICK TRACY DETECTIVE and DICK TRACY VS. CUEBALL) were pretty good films. The basic problem with these two Ralph Byrd films is the writing--it's horrendously bad.