This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

not horrible nor great

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

I saw the feature film version of this serial. There is very little about this movie that screams Dick Tracy to me.It is a silly creaky spy caper with criminal Nicolas Zarnoff escaping execution by feigning his death through some mysterious drug and Tracy and his fellow FBI agents pursue him.There are regular cliffhangers, at one point Tracy is hanging off a plane, there is stock footage used from an airship disaster but it also looks archaic to modern eyes. The scene where Tracy and his men take a conveniently parked cab when their car has a flat tyre and the cab driver turns out to be a henchman.

DICK TRACY'S G-MEN is another entertaining serial for star Ralph Byrd, who had already played the eponymous hero twice by this stage. I always find a serial is only as good as the chief villain and this one has a fine one in the form of Irving Pichel's Zanoff, a mad scientist who returns from death after being apparently executed at the outset. The rest of the production sees Tracy and his allies going after Zanoff and his men. Plenty of fisticuffs and chase scenes ensue, along with all the cliffhanger climaxes you could wish for, and what's most notable here is the scope of the action, with large-scale events like the airship scenario really excelling. Watch out for Jennifer Jones, later of THE TOWERING INFERNO fame, as a key ally.

That's probably the less interesting serial of all that William Witney made in his all carrier. And certainly the less of the three Dick Tracy ones he made; the best is the fourth. This one was the third. One good point is of course Raplh Byrd - the best Dick Tracy actor of all times - and the villain played by Irving Pichel - whose face reminds me Benicio Del Toro. Yes Pichel is a terrific heavy here. But besides, I won't say it's a tepid serial, far from that, but I could prefer those directed later, even in the fifties, made by the likes of Fred C Brannon or Spencer Bennet. The weak point, if you compare with those made by Republic Studios several years later, is the fist fights. Here, you perfectly see that they have not reached their peak yet. But a couple years later, the fist fights are spectacular, oh my God !!!One more good an surprising point for this serial is the ending. I am not a serial specialist, but the ending here, although not spectacular, is very interesting and unforgettable. I won't spoil it, but I don't think that in another serial you could Watch such an end. But maybe I am wrong.

Zarnoff, the world's most notorious spy, is sentenced to death in the gas chamber for his activities. Zarnoff escapes through a drug he ingests before being brought to the death chamber. For the rest of the serial, he wages war with the man who sent him there, Dick Tracy. Very good cat and mouse game between Tracy and Zarnoff, couple with good action sequences, make this serial well recommended. Watch for the stock footage of the Hindenburg disaster. Great score as well. In terms of serials, 9 out of 10.