Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Softwing Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

hwg1957-102-265704 Doubly directed by Alan James and Ray Taylor this an excellent serial concerning the exploits of Dick Tracy. A master criminal called The Lame One runs The Spider Ring who engage in smuggling, espionage, murder and similar illegal activities and the valiant Tracy and his team go head to head with them. The Lame One has also captured Tracy's brother Gordon and with the evil doctor Moloch's skills ("a simple altering of certain glands"!) has turned Tracy into a pliable assistant for himself. The altered brother carries out most of The Lame One's schemes. Incident follows incident in some good locations until the breathless finish.Ralph Byrd is perfect as Dick Tracy, determined and dedicated to to his task. The identity of The Lame One is kept to the end. He hobbles about wearing a built up shoe and barks out orders from a desk. The mad Moloch is played by the creepy John Picorri (often stroking a black cat) and Carleton Young is effective as the changed Gordon Tracy, a streak of white hair on his head after his character changing operation, with an air of sadness about him that is poignant. Unfortunately the great Byron Foulger is only in it briefly as the gangster Korvitch.Smiley Burnette is one of Tracy's assistants Mike McGurk and is supposed to be the comic relief but who isn't at all funny. Also appearing in a couple of scenes are 'Oscar' and 'Elmer' who were a comic team at the time but they aren't funny either. Lee Van Atta as Junior gets more laughs. I. Stanford Jolley plays 'Roadside Thug' and 'G-Man' and 'Reporter' and 'Intern' to show his versatility.It has great model work by the Lydecker brothers including a wonderful flying wing that is used a lot. Indeed a lot of the scenes take place in the air. The fifteen packed episodes are a great start to the Dick Tracy serials.

jetan Superb serial. The only one that matches it in quality is the first Flash Gordon. The production values are exceptional and eclipse many better known B movies. Ralph Byrd is perfectly cast in the title role. The only explanation I can think of for some viewers to rate this any lower than an "A" is that they just haven't seen very many serials. One of the few efforts in this line that actually has some atmospheric touches and, as another commenter has pointed out, the special effects are genuinely good.Folks who don't really like serials are....well, they're folks who don't like serials (probably don't much like Christmas either). For those who do like serials, this is like a trip to the circus. Good action and WAY better than usual script and acting. As movies go, this probably only deserves a 7 but for a serial it deserves a perfect 10.

dbborroughs Ralph Byrd stalled forever his career by taking the role of Chester Gould's crime fighting hero. Byrd would play the role in three more serials, two hour long feature films (taking over when another actor proved unsatisfactory) and a TV series. Byrd could never really get away from Tracy and was type cast as the character even though he took a variety of other roles. Not to put too fine a point on it this, along with its three sequels, represent one of mystery films finest hours. In all of the films we have an excellent mix of crime, mystery and action. The film works as several different things all at the same time and all of them good. The plot of this serial has Tracy battling the Spider, aka The Lame one, who is bent on taking over the world. He's so bad that he is eliminating all the other criminals in town as well has kidnapping and twisting the brother of Tracy through vile means. Its heady stuff and a real joy to watch. It's a big story told on a large canvas with great special effects (The model work here, as with all Republic serials is as good as it gets). You really need to see this serial and its sequels since they all are a great deal of fun.

wrbtu I've watched only 4-5 serials, so I don't have a lot to compare thisto, but so far it's easily the worst of the lot. The overlap fromchapter to chapter is too great (too much material repeated in thenew episode that was seen in the previous episode). The acting ispoor, especially Ralph Byrd (if he stood still for a moment, he'd beattacked by a woodpecker). The "comedy" of Smiley Burnett isnothing to smile about (he's even worse here than in the GeneAutry movies). The character with the most brains in this serial isactually the 12 year old kid, played by Lee Van Atta. And perhapsmost of all, has anybody seen Dick Tracy in this film? I must havemissed him, because no one in this movie even remotelyresembled the comic strip character. Low budget is not enough ofan excuse for low tech here. At least the director could have put awatch on Ralph Byrd's wrist, & pretended it was radio controlled.The two low budget jungle serials I watched with Phyllis Coates("Panther Girl of the Congo" & "Jungle Drums of Africa") were waybetter than this, & so was a low budget jungle serial with ClydeBeatty ("Lost Jungle"). Not that those were great serials, but theywere better than this one, so tells you something about Dick Tracy.If you'd like to watch a better crime serial, I recommend "The GreenArcher." That & the serial I'm in the middle of now, "CaptainMarvel," are far superior to Dick Tracy. I rate it 3/10.