A tough and intelligent detective who uses forensic science, advanced gadgetry, and wits in his relentless pursuit of criminals.
Dick Tracy's foe for this serial is the crime boss, and Masked Mystery Villain, The Spider/The Lame One (both names are used) and his Spider Ring. In the process of various crimes, including using his Flying wing and sound weapon to destroy the Bay Bridge in San Francisco and stealing an experimental "Speed Plane", the Spider captures Dick Tracy's brother, Gordon. The Spider's minion, Dr Moloch, performs a brain operation on Gordon Tracy to turn him evil, making him secretly part of the Spider Ring and so turning brother against brother.
Dick Tracy Returns (1938) is a Republic Movie serial based on the Dick Tracy comic strip. It was the eleventh of the sixty six serials Republic produced and a sequel to the 1937 serial Dick Tracy, with Ralph Byrd reprising his role as the title character. It was successful enough that two further sequels were released, in 1939 and 1941, and Byrd become so connected with the character he went on the play him in a subsequent television series. This serial charts Tracy's efforts to capture the Stark Gang of Pa
Nicholas Zarnoff, master spy and the most hated man on Earth, is sentenced to die in the gas chamber. By using a secret drug, which does not permit the gas to enter his lungs, Zarnoff cheats death and escapes. Dick Tracy, the government's ace investigator, is assigned the task of tracking down Zarnoff and bringing him to justice. For 15 episodes Dick Tracy and Zarnoff battle it out on land, on sea and in the air.
Chester Gould modeled his famous comic strip sleuth on the features of square-jawed actor Jack Holt, but it is Ralph Byrd who became the definitive Dick Tracy on the big screen. In this action-packed chapter play, Tracy battles the Ghost, a fiendish master criminal who has the ability to make himself invisible. One of the Ghost's less savory ambitions is to wipe out New York City with a gigantic tidal wave. Can Dick Tracy save the Big Apple from being swallowed up by the sea? Don't miss a single thrilling minute!
Dick Tracy (Morgan Conway), a supremely intelligent police detective, must solve a series of brutal murders in which the victims, all from different social and economic backgrounds, are viciously slashed to pieces by the one known as Splitface (Mike Mazurki). Suspects flourish but Tracy must find the common link of extortion and revenge before more are killed.
Diamonds are stolen but before the thief can safely hide them aboard an ocean liner he is strangled by ex-conman Cueball (Dick Tracy villain). Cueball takes the diamonds and is given refuge by Filthy Flora, madam of the Dripping Dagger Bar, and then continues on murdering people that he believes are trying to double-cross him. Dick Tracy allows his girlfriend Tess to act as a buyer for the diamonds but is put in grave danger when Cueball vows to eliminate her.
Ruthless killer Steve Michel is known to the public as "The Claw" for his way of killing his victims with his prosthetic hook. After his accomplices Ryan and Taylor have broken in and stolen furs from the Flawless Furs warehouse, Steve kills the guard with his hook. When the police arrive at the crime scene in the shape of Detective Dick Tracy, he talks to Humphries, who is the owner of the store; Peter Premium, who is a representative for the insurance company; and a man named Cudd, who is the insurance investigator. The insurance company only has twenty-four hours to find the stolen goods, or they have to reimburse the fur company. Tracy and his semi-competent assistant Patton examine the dead body at the morgue and find a note on it stating that there were three perpetrators performing the hit against the warehouse. It also mentions that they used a truck with the name "Daisy" on it. Unfortunately, the three perpetrators disguise the truck before Tracy can find it, and the lead is a dead end. The robbers soon leave their hideout in a local junkyard and go to a nearby bar to phone their boss and get new instructions. As they speak with the boss on the phone, their conversation is overheard by an informant, a blind beggar called Sightless, who goes to pass the information on. Sightless is sloppy and noisy when eavesdropping, and is nearly caught by The Claw. Still, he manages to escape the bar.
Just out of jail, Gruesome (Boris Karloff) goes to the Hangman's Knot Bar (establishment), where his old crime crony, Melody (Tony Barrett), is now playing piano. Gruesome takes him to a plastics manufacturer, where X-Ray (Skelton Knaggs) and a mysterious mastermind are in possession of a secret formula and hatching a sinister plot.
Through the 1950's ABC was an also-ran network which out of necessity aired low-budget programs. Dick Tracy was popular with kids, but star Ralph Byrd's fatal heart attack in August, 1952 precluded the series continuation.
Grab your two-way wrist radios and join Dick Tracy and his crime-busting pals—Joe Jitsu, Go-Go Gomez, Hemlock Holmes, Heap O’Calorie and The Retouchables Squad—as they battle notorious villains like the unibrowed gangster, Flattop Jones, mad scientist, Pruneface, and the infamous Mole.
The film is set in the 1930s. At an illegal card game, a young Street children 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.
