The 10th film in Mill Creek’s Fabulous Forties box set was 1947’s Dick Tracy’s Dilemma. According to Wikipedia, this was the third Dick Tracy film to be produced by RKO Pictures. In case you couldn’t guess from the title, Dick Tracy has a dilemma in this film. I assume that, in the first two films, he had a problem and a quandary.
Clocking in at just an hour, Dick Tracy’s Dilemma takes place over the course of one long and very dark night. Three men rob the Flawless Furs Warehouse and kill the night watchman. The leader of the gang (played by Jack Lambert) is known as the Claw because, instead of a right hand, he has a prosthetic hook, which he can use to either beat or claw people to death. (It all depends on his mood.) The Claw also loves cats so he can’t be all bad.
Investigating the murder is Detective Dick Tracy (Ralph Byrd). This was the first Dick Tracy film that I’ve ever actually watched so I can’t claim to be an expert on the character. But judging from this film, Dick Tracy’s dilemma is that everyone around him is either extremely stupid or extremely evil. For example, Dick’s partner, Patton (Lyle Latell), is useless. When Dick’s number one informant, a fake blind beggar named Sightless (Jimmy Conlin), attempts to get some important information to Dick, he has the misfortune of running into Dick’s idiot friend, a Shakespearean actor named Vitamin (Ian Keith). Vitamin mishears the information and he delivers his lines with so much over-the-top flourish that, by the time he tells Dick that Sightless wants to speak to him, the poor beggar has already been murdered by The Claw.
Seriously, people have been talking about how dark Batman v. Superman is but just check out Dick Tracy’s Dilemma. The Claw is a sadistic killing machine and, in the end, it seems like it’s more dumb luck than good police work that leads to Dick Tracy tracking him down. The film ends with smiles all around, despite the fact that it’s only been a few hours since poor Sightless was clawed to death. If Vitamin wasn’t a drunk old actor, Sightless wouldn’t be dead. For that matter, Dick Tracy is the one who pressured Sightless to act as an informant in the first place.
Seen today, Dick Tracy’s Dilemma seems more like an episode of an old cop show than an actual movie. It’s easy to be dismissive of it but I don’t know. If I had been alive in 1947 and saw this movie when it was originally released, I probably would have enjoyed it. Ralph Byrd makes a convincing hero and there is a sense of genuine menace to Jack Lambert’s performance as The Claw. That said, don’t even get me started on Vitamin.
What type of name is Vitamin anyway?
You can watch Dick Tracy’s Dilemma below!
Through the Shattered Lens 