I just discovered this, and it’s wonderful.
Warren Beatty made the Dick Tracy movie for Disney in 1990, and he REALLY loved doing it. So much so, that for the past few years he has been talking about doing a sequel. Thought, to be honest, I don’t see such a film succeeding in any way shape or form.
I really love the character of Dick Tracy, and quite enjoyed the Beatty film, but… it’s a character that is from another age. While the comic strip has “modernized” over the years, the idea of a gritty fedora-wearing detective facing a variety of distorted criminals – well, that’s Batman’s job, now.
(In fact, an argument can be made that Batman is the modern version of Dick Tracy, and has evolved much better than Chester Gould’s creation has – but I will not make that argument here).
One of the interesting stories of the Dick Tracy movie is his production company bought and (still) owns the movie and TV rights – which resulted in this little piece of eccentric brilliance. In order to keep his rights, Warren had to produce another “movie” featuring Dick Tracy and in 2009 he did exactly that: Making this 30-minute “Dick Tracy Special” that aired exactly once on AMC. It is on YouTube:
I love how Dick Tracy says that Warren Beatty was “fine” in the “biopic” about him – and how impressed he was that Beatty looked so much like him. Also fun was when Dick states his age…
I think this will be the last time we will ever see “Dick Tracy” on screen, and… I’m OK with that. He is a character of a certain time – and that time is gone.