VCI Entertainment Brings The Entire Dick Tracy Film Series To Blu-ray On Aug. 13 With The Release Of Dick Tracy: RKO Pictures Collection

VCI Entertainment made a long-lead announcement this past week that will have film buffs and series collections whistling a happy tune on Aug. 13.

This will be the double-disc Blu-ray series of four films titled Dick Tracy: RKO Pictures Collection.

Patterned after the exploits of “Untouchable” Eliot Ness, Chester Gould launched a comic strip series in October of 1931 about Dick Tracy, a detective crime-busting hero.   The comic strip quickly became a national sensation.

Within three years it was radio program and by 1937 the first Republic Pictures serial arrived, Dick Tracy (15 chapters of non-stop crime-fighting and cliffhanging thrills), starring Ralph Byrd as Tracy.

Dick Tracy Returns followed in 1938, Dick Tracy’s G-Men hit theatres in 1939 and the fourth serial in the series, Dick Tracy vs. Crime, Inc. concluded the serial adventures in 1941.

Nothing during the war, so the hunger for more Dick Tracy adventures built and built until Morgan Conway, an RKO “contract player,” was cast as Tracy in the 1945 theatrical release of Dick Tracy (aka: Dick Tracy, Detective).   This is the first of the four films included in VCI Entertainment’s Blu-ray collection on Aug. 13.

The second in the series, Dick Tracy vs. Cueball, arrived in 1946 … the pressure by this time was building for Conway to be replaced by Ralph Byrd, who had become synonymous with the character.  

 So RKO did just that, they replaced Conway and brought Byrd back for the summer of 1947 film release of director John Rawlins’ Dick Tracy’s Dilemma.

The fourth film in the series, Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome (with Boris Karloff as “Gruesome”), hit theatres just two months later and series appeared to be off and running … and then the battle over the studio took place, with Howard Hughes gaining control (further Tracy movies were shelved).

While there were two different Dick Tracy actors in the short-run series — Tim Conway and Ralph Byrd — there were three different actors cast as Tess Trueheart … Anne Jeffreys in the two Conway entries, Kay Christopher as Trueheart in Dick Tracy’s Dilemma, and Anne Gwynne taking over in Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome.

One final note, Ralph Byrd returned one more time as Dick Tracy in the 1950/52 television series of the same name (48 episodes for ABC).