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Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Comedy Podcast
80s and 90s movies and early 2000s tv may be called stupid shit by some, but you know it matters. So do we. We're Tracie and Emily, sister podcasters who love well-crafted fiction and one another. In this comedy podcast, we look at the classic movies of our Gen X childhood and adolescence, analyzing film tropes to uncover the cultural commentary on romance, money, religion, mental health, and more. From Twilight to Ghostbusters, Harry Potter to the Muppets, comedy to drama to horror, we use feminism, our super smart brains, and each other to uncover the lessons lurking behind the nostalgia of pop culture. Come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit.
Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Comedy Podcast
Dick Tracy: Deep Thoughts About the Comic Strip Villains, Overusing Montages, and What We Accepted As "Romance" in 80s and 90s Movies
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"I know how you feel. You don't know if you want to hit me or kiss me. I get a lot of that."
On this week's episode of Deep Thoughts, Tracie revisits the 1990 film Dick Tracy, the big budget Oscar winner that pop culture forgot. Director and star Warren Beatty wanted to recreate the comic strip detective as a live action hero, complete with all the weird villains that populate the funny papers, as well as the romance Tracy enjoyed with both his loving girlfriend Tess Trueheart and the villainous femme fatale, Breathless Mahoney. In some ways, Beatty succeeded: the visuals of the film are arresting (pun very much intended). But although contemporaneous movie reviews were glowing, Dick Tracy has gone unremembered, even as a cult classic--in part because the story has very little heart and Beatty's turn as Tracy is kinda meh.
That doesn't mean this movie isn't fun (if a little infuriating) to watch. The "romance" plot that puts Tracy in a love triangle with Mahoney (played by Madonna), and the long-suffering Tess (Glenne Headly) doesn't give the viewer much to go on as to why these women want the rule-breaking detective. But if you can overlook the outdated romance, Dick Tracy can take you back to the nostalgia of watching a square-jawed detective fight the bad guys in the Sunday comics.
We promise not to put you in the cement bath. Just take a listen!
Tags: deep thoughts about stupid sh*t, romance, pop culture, film, movie reviews, cult classic, women, 80s and 90s movies, nostalgia, feminism, cultural commentary, storytelling, warren beatty, comic strip, gen x childhood, analyzing film tropes, madonna, dick tracy
This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
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We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.
We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.
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And so he's walking out the door and he pulls an engagement ring out of his pocket, like the a ring box out of his pocket, and he tosses it to her and says, You're one in a million, Tess. And that's how he proposed. Have you ever had something you love dismissed because it's just pop culture? What others might deem stupid shit, you know matters. You know it's worth talking and thinking about. And so do we. So come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit. I'm Tracy Guy Decker, and you're listening to Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit. Because pop culture is still culture. And shouldn't you know what's in your head? On today's episode, I'll be sharing my deep thoughts about the 1990 film Dick Tracy with my sister, Emily Guyberkin, and with you. Let's dive in. Okay, I know you saw this movie. We saw it together. But what is in your head? What do you remember about Dick Tracy?
SPEAKER_00:Not a whole heck of a lot, although when I say that and then I say stuff and you're like, yeah, that's everything. But in this case, I remember the yellow trench coat and yellow hat that was very much evocative of the cartoon strip. Because so much was very like this was very much a recreation of like the Sunday cartoon strip. I remember Madonna as Tess Truehart. No, Madonna is Breathless Mahoney. Thank you. Tess Truehart is the she's the femme fatale. Tess Truehart's the good girl. That's right. That makes the girlfriend. The girlfriend.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Who is played by Glenn Heedley. Okay. Headley. That's right. Heedley. I don't know how to pronounce her name. Thank you. And that makes much more sense. Okay. Yes. I remember so I liked the funny papers growing up, and but I never read the soap operay ones. And this got me reading Dick Tracy, and I read them from that point onwards until I was no longer reading newspapers. So that is, you know, kind of something from it. And then the one other thing that I remember is there is a scene where there's an explosion behind Warren Beatty. And for some reason or another, they managed to get a take where he didn't flinch, even though the like normally he would have. And it was this amazing take. And I remember being like kind of impressed and charmed by that. That's about it. I remember the visuals being really impressive. But yeah, that's about it. That's what I got. Okay. You're gonna tell me, yep, that's the movie.
SPEAKER_01:There's a little more, but yeah, that's most of it. Well, I wanted to talk about it today. It actually, maybe subconsciously, I did this right after our last episode when you brought your deep thoughts about the '89 Batman. Because these two movies are often linked in commentators' minds. They happen so quickly on the heels of each other, both of them pulled from the sort of comics. And Disney tried to do what Warner Brothers had done with Batman with Dick Tracy and make it sort of the merchandising and like soundtrack phenomenon, and they were not as successful. So maybe subconsciously the two movies were linked when we were planning. I didn't remember it consciously. But the reason that it was on the list at all was it was something that, again, we saw together. And like so many of these films that end up on our list, Dad really liked it. I remember him being charmed by the visuals of it. So, and I hadn't really thought about it in however many years. And so, you know, when we were looking at like movies of the 80s and 90s, and it was on the list, I was like, oh yeah, I think I like that one. So there's not a whole lot at stake for me, but that's why it sort of came up on the list, and maybe subconsciously why I put it on the list now after you chose Batman. So let me give you a couple of postcards from The Destination, and then I actually am this time going to read the synopsis from Wikipedia, like for reels, because this movie is weird. And I don't know that I could. I saw it two days ago, and I it's our it's also kind of forgettable, remarkably. So I'm not sure I can remember the synopsis enough. So, but uh postcards from The Destination, the what you remember and what I remember dad being charmed by is like the standout, is the this is just visually stunning and totally different than any other movie in 1990, right? And done with practical effects. It was very early stages of a CGI, and this doesn't have any CGI. So sort of the last gasp of like matte backdrops, which are now completely replaced with CGI, right? And the set designers and the costumers limited themselves to something like seven colors so that it really mirrored the experience of those Sunday papers that you remember. And so you cannot talk about this movie without talking about that. I also want to talk about the music. They cast Madonna as this femme fetale, who is the singer at a nightclub. And so it gave an opportunity for her to perform. And Sondheim, Stephen Sondheim wrote new songs for her to perform for this movie. Danny Elfman did the score. Like they really went all out with this film. So I want to talk a little bit about the music and how it's used cinematically. This movie caricatures everyone is a caricature. That's kind of the point because they are stopped out of, and so there's like a lot of prosthetic makeup on the villains and things, and like everything is a caricature. And therefore, sexuality, and specifically in the person of Madonna's Breathless Mahoney, is a caricature. And I want to talk about like what happens when we allow female sexuality to be caricaturized. In I mean, it's in the in context of caricatures, but I feel like there's a little bit more riding on it, on that in particular, similarly with masculinity. So both female sexuality and like what it means to be manly in this caricature feels more dangerous than some of the other caricatures that we see. This movie, again, all out, had all sarcasts, Al Pacino's in it, Dustin Hoffman's in it, like the amazing luminaries of the time were in this movie. And yet there's kind of no heart to it. It's really forgettable. So I want to talk about that. Like, how does that happen in this visually stunning movie that's just in many ways there's no there? Which might be because Beatty cast himself in the lead role, maybe. And I think that's everything that I'm gonna talk about, but I'm sure other thoughts.
SPEAKER_00:You did mention before we hit record that there's some copaganda involved in this too.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yes. Thank you. Yes. So, yeah, because Beatty is the hard-boiled cop trying to keep the streets safe from organized crime, and he resorts to some underhanded tactics that are much harder to overlook and give a pass to in 2025 than they were in 1990. We shouldn't have given him them a pass in 1990, but as a culture we did. Today, like we rightfully know but don't sort of witness intimidation and downright torture in some. So, yeah. The other thing I'll say is that watching this movie, for me personally, they call Dick Tracy Tracy throughout. And there's a character who's known just as the kid for most of the movie. So, listeners, our father's best friend, who we called Uncle, though he was not blood relation, always referred to me as the kid, because apparently, when I was expected, our parents just referred to the would say when the kid comes, when the kid, when the kid. And so he called me the kid until the day he died, which was just a few years ago. So this was like really interesting for me to watch this movie when on screen they kept saying, Tracy, Tracy, Tracy, the kid, kid, kid. It was like all about me, but not real. I bet that had something to do with why dad liked it too. You think so? Oh, I'm sure. All right. I'm going to read the synopsis from Wikipedia. So this is just straight off the Wikipedia. Thank you to Wikipedia editors and writers. Thank you, Wikipedia editors. It is 1938, which I didn't know until I just read the synopsis. A young street kid witnesses the massacre of a group of mobsters at the hands of Flat Top and Itchy, two hoods on the payroll of Alphonse big boy Caprice, who leave a bullet-riddled message for police detective Dick Tracy. After catching the kid in an act of petty theft and rescuing him from a menacing tramp, Tracy temporarily adopts him with the help of his girlfriend, Tess Truehart. Meanwhile, Big Boy coerces rival mobster Lips Manless into signing over the deed to the club Ritz, then kills Lips with a cement overcoat and steals his girlfriend, the sultry singer Breathless Mahoney. Interrogating Flattop Itchy and fellow hired gun mumbles, Tracy arrests Big Boy, but the evidence against him proves inconclusive. Big Boy goes free and district attorney John Fletcher threatens Tracy's job. Breathless, the only witness to Lips' murder, is unwilling to testify against Big Boy and unsuccessfully attempts to seduce Tracy. He follows her to the club where Big Boy presents the city's head criminals with a plan to unite them all under his leadership. Mob boss Spud Spaldoni refuses and is killed with a car bomb, which Tracy narrowly escapes. The next day, Big Boy and his henchmen capture Tracy and attempt to bribe him, but he rebuffs them. The criminals leave Tracy to die in a boiler explosion, but he is saved by the kid who receives an honorary detective certificate. The corrupt Fletcher is revealed, Fletcher's the DA, is revealed to be in Big Boy's pocket, while Breathless visits Tracy in an attempt to seduce him, and Tess witnesses them kiss. The blank, a mysterious figure with no face, uses the club's piano player, 88 Keys, to bring Big Boy to a Bring Boy an offer to eliminate Tracy for a cut of Big Boy's profits. Tracy leads a seemingly unsuccessful raid on Club Ritz, which is actually a diversion to hide officer Bug Bailey inside with a covert listening device. Listening in on Big Boy's criminal activities, Tracy and the police all but wipe out the unified criminal organization. However, Big Boy discovers the bug and lures Tracy into an ambush, but Tracy rescues Bailey, that was the listener, Bug Bailey, the officer who was listening, rescues Bailey and is himself saved by the Blank. A furious Big Boy accepts the Blank's offer while a heartbroken Tess leaves the city. In love with Tracy, Breathless agrees to testify if he gives in to her advances. But Tracy cannot bring himself to betray Tess, who has a change of heart and returns home. Tess is kidnapped by the Blank, who subdues Tracy and with the help of 88 Keys, kills Fletcher, the DA, and frames an unconscious Tracy. With Tracy behind bars, Big Boy terrorizes the city in a lucrative crime wave. Taken to the city orphanage, the kid adopts the name Dick Tracy Jr. and reunites with Tracy, who is released by his colleagues on New Year's Eve. Interrogating Mumbles again, Tracy and the police surround Club Ritz, where the Blank has left Tess to frame Big Boy for her kidnapping. In the ensuing gun battle, Big Boy's men are killed while Big Boy takes Tess hostage and escapes to a drawbridge. Tying Tess to the gears, Big Boy is confronted by Tracy and they are held at gunpoint by the Blank, who offers to share the city with Tracy once they kill Big Boy. Distracted by Junior, the kid, the Blank is shot by Big Boy before Tracy sends Big Boy falling down a shaft to his death. Rescuing Tess, Tracy unmasks the blank to reveal a mortally wounded, breathless mahoney who kisses Tracy before dying. Later, Tracy proposes to Tess. Well, he's gonna, but he's interrupted by a police dispatch. He leaves her with the ring as he and Junior respond to the call.
SPEAKER_00:Crime, crime, crime, save the day, save the day. Woman in trouble, love triangle, cute kid. Yes.
SPEAKER_01:So let me just highlight a couple of scenes. Big boy tries to bribe Tracy. So he takes him, he like kind of kidnaps him and takes him to the basement of Tessa's apartment building and offers him$15,000, which I didn't do the math, but if this was meant to be 1938, that was a boatload of money. The kid is looking through the basement window and watching, and we watch him like hope that Tracy doesn't take the bribe. And so when Tracy says, You're trying to bribe an officer of the law, like I'm not interested. The kid is like relieved. Tracy's tied up, and the mob guys, like, I don't know, do something to the boiler so that it's gonna explode, and the kid breaks into the basement and saves him. So so there was that scene about sort of the morality that was really important. In the very beginning, the when he meets the kid, he follows him, the kid has stolen something, and he follows the kid into this like shanty shack town. And the kid comes into this one little shack that's sort of standing alone, and this like guy's eating, and the kid says, You didn't save me any chicken. And the guy says, What'd you get? What'd you steal? And he pulls out a watch. He says, That's it. And the kid says, Yeah, and he goes to take some chicken, and the man like pushes him, hits him, so he falls against the wall. And then Tracy comes in. That the kid had thought he'd lost him, and the and Tracy's like, Why don't you pick on someone your own size? And like he beats him up, and like the camera is outside the shack, and the shack is like cartoony, like shifting back and forth. Yeah, because it's a cartoon. Anyway, so Tracy like saves this kid from this guy who's menacing him, like menacing tramp is what the Wikipedia editors call him. And Tracy says, This cockroach, your old man, and the kid goes, Go suck an egg. Which I thought was really great. So, and then the scenes with Breathless, like Madonna as Breathless, like this was a vehicle for Madonna to be sexy. Yeah. Like, period. There's a scene when he goes to see her backstage because she's a singer at this club, and she's wearing a sheer neglige and underwear, and that's it. And like, wow. I remember feeling that way. Yeah. But the like our Wikipedia editors told us that she's in love with Tracy, and that is in fact what we're meant to believe. But like, why? Like, there's no nothing. There's no nothing there. There's sexual attraction, or at least, I mean, there they show us sexual attraction between them. And Beatty and Madonna were dating at the time, so there should have been on-screen chemistry, one one would think. But that's it. And Madonna's breathless delivers some fascinating lines. Like at one point, she comes and she's like crawling on his desk on all fours, like talking to him. And he says, I don't remember what he said, but she says, I know you can't decide if you want to kiss me or hit me. I get that a lot. Oh my God. The hell? Whoa. There's another line where he thinks she's Tess, and he says, What kind of ice cream did you get? Because she knocks on the door and he thinks she's Tess coming back. Tess had gone out to get ice cream, and Breathless says, Fresh peach, but you better eat it soon or it'll melt. Something like that.
SPEAKER_00:I know that sailed over my head when I was 11.
SPEAKER_01:No, I know I didn't get that the first time around. And like now I'm like, one reviewer said that they felt like Madonna's delivery always landed on the wrong side of the line between vulgar and sultry.
unknown:Wow.
SPEAKER_01:So Yeah. So the picture that we get, the only things that Dick Tracy is afraid of are a desk's job, which we hear again and again, and marriage.
SPEAKER_00:So clearly he doesn't like the idea of being tied down because that's what both of those things represent.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Right. And when Tess sees him kissing breathless, like she sort of, she's sort of done. And she leaves town, she goes to her mother's, and she's at her mother's. And her mom says, you know, he could be elected president of the United States and he wouldn't take it because it's a desk job.
SPEAKER_00:It's an itchy time of year.
SPEAKER_01:Everybody's ashy. And then her mom says, You have to have a lot of understanding to love a man like that. And Tess says, What did you say, mother? And she says it again. And that's some sort of light bulb for Tess. And she goes back to the city where she is, that's where she's kidnapped by the blank after she goes back. I still don't know what that meant. Like why that was a thing. Like, because she goes back to the city, she goes to her workplace, which is a greenhouse, and is like, I don't know, writing him a letter or something when the blank kidnaps her. I that was a thing that was like, again, part of why I didn't want to do the synopsis because like I don't understand what happened psychologically. Did she not realize she was in love with him? No, I think she did because in the very first scene with the two of them, they're walking and she says something like, If you can't do that, you'll never have a wife. I mean, a life outside of like so they put like little Freudian slips. Like, she's hinting that she wants to get married. So I don't know. I don't know what that was about. I don't know what that was about. So, so that was sort of these two women both in love with him, and neither for neither of them do I really understand why. Yeah. The one moment that actually felt like some heart was so because the kid helps, I don't know if it was when he helped when he saved Tracy or what, but he's given that certificate, that like honorary detective certificate, and they make a big deal about the fact that they make it out to the kid because he doesn't have a name. So it says like to the kid. And they say it's just a temporary one until you choose a name for yourself. And then later, after they've been reunited, after Tracy's been in jail for being framed for killing DA, and the kid was in the orphanage, they're sitting at the diner where a lot of action happens. And the kid says, I got my permanent certificate. And Tracy says, Oh, you picked a name? He said, Yeah. And he hands over the certificate. And as the viewer, you read, it says Dick Tracy Jr. And the kid says, if that's all right with you. That was the one moment where I was like, Oh. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So there's not a lot of emotion in this movie, I guess is what I'm getting at. But let me like talk about what I actually want to talk about with it. And I'll fill in additional scenes if I need to to kind of make it clearer. So you remember the yellow trench coat in Fedora, and that saturated color of the costumes and the sets is the number one most memorable thing about this movie, in my opinion. Beatty had been talk apparently had been talking about making the This movie for a while for like years. And initially, like Gould, who was the actual cartoonist who drew Dick Tracy while he was still living, like his desire for creative control proved too difficult. So he was gonna like Beatty wanted to try and make this movie in the 70s, late 70s. Gould died in the mid-80s, and there were some bumps along the road in making this movie, apparently. But Beatty had a vision. Like he really wanted to like make this Sunday comic strip come to life. And he succeeded, at least in the look of it. Not only is there this sort of saturated color palette, all of the villains have these prosthetics to make them look like the caricatures of the drawings. So and they all have these very like blunt nicknames about the way they look, right? So Flat Top has this like flat forehead, and Little Face has this giant head with a face in the middle. I remember that one, yeah. And Lips Manless, who's the one who owns the club in the beginning and is killed, has these like big, like oversized, frowny lips. He's kind of gross. In fact, Breathless finishes her set and comes to sit with him at the club, and he's eating oysters, just one after another. Like we just watch him eat all these oysters with these huge lips. And she says, Can I go now? And he's like, Why? And she said, When you eat, it makes me sick.
SPEAKER_00:All right. For the win there. Yeah. I'm gonna give that one to breathless. Yeah. Maybe not the peach ice cream one, but that one's good.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So these like the makeup artists for this film really outdid the stuff. Didn't they win any kind of awards for this? Did win Oscars for, I believe, set design and costume and or art direction and costume and possibly the makeup. I don't. There were, I think there were three. So it was definitely recognized for the masterful job that that these guys did. Al Pacino plays Big Boy, and he's got this like hunch, like Richard III hunchback, but also like this crazy big chin and like a little like John Waters mustache, and like he really plays it up. The styling is just amazing. Mandy Petinkin is the piano player at 88 Keys. And they managed to make him look so unappealing, which is really remarkable. Mandy Petinkin is a good looking man. Yeah. And like, in fact, I didn't recognize him at first. And then there's a one scene where he's wearing a hat and it's a straight-on shot. And I was like, oh my god, it's Mandy Pikin.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. It's amigo.
SPEAKER_01:But initially, like I didn't recognize him at all because he had this like weird, unflattering hairdo. And like, so there's the actual like styling of it is so so good. And clearly, like, they went all out. Beatty had a vision. And then he stuck himself in the lead role. And I wonder if Beatty would have been a more successful director of this film if he had not been his own lead actor. Because I feel like of all the performances, his is like the least compelling. Pacino chews the scenery, but that's kind of the point because he's a caricature mob boss. So he's like doing a caricature version of the mob bosses he's played in other movies, you know. And, you know, with this crazy like hunchback and huge chin and all the things. And Hoffman plays this, Dustin Hoffman plays this character called Mumbles in like a blonde wig who like you can't understand a single thing that he says. It's fun and it's a cartoon, but it's like I was able to get into it with him. With Beatty, he's just handsome. Like if he's not like running to the scene of a crime, like I don't have any idea of what's going through his head. That scene that you remember, he sort of turns around with the Tommy gun and a car explodes behind him and he doesn't flinch. That's beautiful cinema. It still doesn't tell me much about the character, you know? Like the psychology of the character.
SPEAKER_00:I do want to like 35 years since I've seen this movie. The only question I want to push back on that is like, cause the I remember the drawings of Dick Tracy where it's like literally a square chin. Yeah, square jaw. Like very much. And so like all he has in the cartoon is handsome. Like there's no there, there. And so like it's in the source material material. And it sounds like part of what the issue was there was no heart in the story.
SPEAKER_01:I think there's maybe. I'm willing to concede that the source material probably didn't have a whole lot of heart, agreed.
SPEAKER_00:And so like writing heart into the story, whether or not Warren Beatty was the lead. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Well, but here's where I would here's my counter to your counter. Batman, the source material doesn't have to have heart, right? Like we talked in our episode in our episode last week, you talked about the fact that because of what the source material was, you can have everything from Adam West to the one from a couple years ago that you won't let your kids see because it's so dark. Like I think there was opportunity to make characters with whom the audience could connect. And that I think it had to be Tracy and Tess because the gangsters are all, you know, caricatures, but I didn't really feel a connection with I think you're right that the source material makes it harder because it doesn't give you, it didn't give him the heart and the emotional resonance for him to just like translate. But I would argue with Batman as our model, that doesn't mean that it couldn't have it. Yeah, yeah. So yeah. While we're talking about caricatures though, this caricatures of evil or of at least lack of a moral compass in these gangsters. And in that context now, we have this caricature of female sexuality in the two characters of Breathless Mahoney by played by Madonna and Tess True Heart played by Glenn Healy. And we have a caricature of masculinity in Dick Tracy. And I want to like spend a little time thinking about this because the movie actually like says it out loud. Like the kid says, at one point, says to Tracy, like, you know, for a tough guy, you do a lot of pansy things. Whoa. Yeah. And he's this like hardboiled detective who like cut, he doesn't care about procedure. He basically tortures mumbles. Like he's got mumbles in his underwear with like heat lamps, and he's sweating and he's like withholding water to try and coerce the confession out of him. Jeez. Yeah. And like other cops say to him, like, you gotta have a warrant. You can't do this. Yeah. Like the DA will have your butt. So he like doesn't follow the rules. So there's sort of that vigilanteism happening with him because he knows best, which is like gross. The sort of masculine.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I associate that with the masculinity because I associate it with the same things of like not wanting to be tied down either by the desk job or by marriage.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And or by rules.
SPEAKER_01:Or by rules. Right. And this movie like gives us multiple times we see he he wants to talk to Tess about either getting married or somehow escalating the relationship. Because he says, I want to talk to you about the fact that you live alone. And she says, I like living alone. It's one of the things we have in common. And he says, Well, it's more about me living alone. And then he gets interrupted because he gets called to a crime scene. And that's happening again at the end. And so he's walking out the door and he pulls an engagement ring out of his pocket, like a ring box out of his pocket, and he tosses it to her and says, You're one in a million, Tess. And that's how he proposed. So, like, and he's so clearly very uncomfortable with this conversation that he's trying to have. And Tess is not helping. She's like, Yes. I mean, she's not letting him off the hook. I mean, not that she's not helping. She's not letting him off the hook. She is waiting for him to do what he seems to be doing. And that dynamic is so familiar. It's like that groove is so well worn of this commitment phobic, tough guy and his love-struck partner who's just waiting expectantly, patiently, wistfully for him to finally pull his head out of his ass. Yeah. And I'm sure in 1990, when I watch it, I loved it. I'm sure that I don't remember how I felt, but I can project myself back and think that I probably was very amused and titillated by the tossing of the ring box. And then she pulls the ring out and puts it on. Watching it now, I'm like, Tess, girl, you could do better. Yeah. Like this guy, what? Like, and I'm not saying you have to like hold out for like the on one knee or whatever, but like have a full conference. Like, let him, he needs to at least be able to finish the sentence. You know?
SPEAKER_00:So I do want to go back. So you said that the kid says to him for a tough guy, you do a lot of pansy things. Pansy things. What's he referring to there?
SPEAKER_01:Like, I think he's just talking about grooming. Okay. Because the kid is like real dirty. And at one point, like, so Tessa's like taking care of him. And we hear that one of the other cops says to Tracy, Tess called. She said she won't let the kid in her car in those clothes because they stink. So they take him to a store to buy new clothes. So I think that's what he's doing. Okay. Okay. Okay. Just screw him. Okay. I think Tracy's like putting his tie on when just the kids come.
SPEAKER_00:Because I think that is a really like that gets to like, okay, what how does the kid define masculinity?
SPEAKER_01:Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And the kid is very resistant to authority as well. Like he does not want to go to an orphanage. In fact, when they say they're going to have to call and like take him to the orphanage the next day, the kid like bolts. And Tracy has to, this is in the very beginning, and Tracy has to catch him. So the kid has been resisting the orphanage the whole time. And in fact, when he res he says he won't get the suit, he won't get a new suit because he knows that means the orphanage. And Tracy says, Don't get a suit you don't want. Pick out what you want. If you don't want a suit, don't get a suit. But if you find a suit you like, get the suit. And the kid's like, okay. And he ends up in this cute little like 1930s like short pants suit. So the resistant to authority is like the mirroring between the two Dick Tracy's, senior and junior. And I think that's part of like the kid identifies the suit and the neat grooming with Pansy. Although he comes around when Tracy says, you know, wear what you want.
SPEAKER_00:Interesting. Well, and I like I'm wondering, so 35 years on, tossing the ring to her and going, You're one in a million tests, like one could say that's like I can see where that would be charming to a 1990 audience. But the man, he's saying to her, like, you live alone, and she's like, I like living alone. And he's like, Well, no, it's about me living alone. Like, well, yeah, it's of course it's about fucking you. You know, like there's no one to wash my socks or make me food, you know, like, and of course she likes living alone because she doesn't have to cater to anybody. She doesn't have to wash his socks or make his food. So, like, because and I of course I didn't catch that as an 11-year-old. But it's the he doesn't, he's uh terrified of a desk job and he's terrified of marriage being tied down. But none of those things like would actually hurt him and in fact would be benefit to him, whereas they would actually harm Tess. You know, if he were to become president of the United States, that would actually harm Tess because then she would have to do all of these jobs as first lady that she doesn't want. She wouldn't get to have her greenhouse job anymore. She wouldn't get to have her life anymore.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And you have to be understanding to love a man like that. Like, ew. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:No, that's exactly like that's why it stuck out to me so much because I was like, I don't know what that means. But if it means what I think it means, ew. Right? Like the test somehow needed to change. And along with all those things is the way the things that Tracy gets away with. And that his so he's in jail. There's this movie uses a lot of montages with like newspaper headlines. It's like a newspaper headline montage. Like, there's multiple newspaper headline montages. And one of them, while he's in jail and big boy is goes on this crime spree, at the end of his he's being transferred to a different prison. By the way, he's they leave him in his regular clothes the whole time, which was weird to me. But he's being transferred to another prison, and his fellow cops like accidentally, I'm putting quotes around that, like let him out so he can, I don't know, go stop big boy. And like, Tess is still missing, so he can go find Tess. So that actually is more understandable. But also, like, they're cops too. Yeah. Like, so there's sort of a singularity about him that makes him like he's the best detective, he's the best cop, and they all want him to be chief of police, but he doesn't want a desk job. And that to me is all wrapped up in this picture of sort of traditional masculinity that is commitment phobic. And the world rearranges for it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Not only do the other cops rearrange for it, like Tess needs to rearrange for it, like Breathless Mahoney, who could have pretty much any man she lays eyes on because she's Madonna in 1990.
SPEAKER_00:She wants him. Although, to be fair, most of the men around her are like weirdly deformed. True.
SPEAKER_01:That's true. But she could leave her. I mean, she could leave the CD club, Reds. She says, like, she doesn't need to be there. And she also says at one point, here's okay, so here's the caricature of femininity. So Tess, who you have to be understanding the love of man like that, like comes back to him versus Breathless, who rightfully says, when at one point Tracy says, Whose side are you on? She says, The side I'm always on, mine. And so there's this good girl whose name is friggin' true heart, who sacrifices and like gets more understanding in order to love him. And then there's Mahoney, who is just pure sexuality, who's only on her own side, but both of them are head over heels for him. Like that's how singular he is. That both sides of like both the sort of mother and the whore. Madonna and the whore. Madonna's both. That both of them are completely head over heels for him. And that with today's eyes, that just grosses me out. Yeah, fantasy.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, and the, I mean, that is something I struggle with sometimes with stories because like they are fantasy. They're self-inserts, they're fantasies, they're like they're wish fulfillment. That's what we do. And so when you get things like, and you know, Dick Tracy was being created originally for years prior to having a lot of these conversations that we're having about masculinity and toxic masculinity and copaganda and all of that. And it started in the 30s. Pre-war. Uh-huh. But the issue is we have people, and like most of the people who are exhibiting toxic masculinity today have probably never even heard of this movie or the comic. Right. But what we have are people who think that they are the hero of their own movie and that they are the singular one. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And that the all the women around them should have rings. Well, and that the rules shouldn't apply to them. And justify the means because they are the most they are the best detective in the world. They are the most attractive. They are the specialist, goodest boy. They are, you know, everything that they do is right. And like that's where I struggle sometimes with storytelling is how do you tell these kinds of wish fulfillment stories? Because I think that there is something beneficial in having wish fulfillment stories without feeding into that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I wonder, again, I wonder if Beatty had directed a different actor because he also did a major screenplay rewrite, which is uncredited. He did it with the help of a of another one. So it's the credits go to the original screenwriters. He bought their script, but then he did a lot of doctoring, apparently, with a another screenwriter. A named other script doctor.
SPEAKER_00:And I'm not remembering it's Bo something or other. See, this is this is when you need Carrie Fisher. Carrie Fisher was the screen doctor that could have fixed it, I think. I don't know that for sure, but she was an excellent screen doctor. Script doctor, that's the word I mean.
SPEAKER_01:If I wonder if Beatty hadn't sort of been the auteur of this, if he had been a director. So that he would have brought his vision of like the comic strip, but with somebody else to like make sure that there was heart and that the women were not believable because they're caricatures, but also not just like oh wow, love-struck vaginas, which is basically what they are.
SPEAKER_00:Because Beatty is a very good actor, but you're right. Like I'm seeing what you're saying, where he's it's not just wish fulfillment, but it's this one man's wish fulfillment in three different directions because he's the writer, director, and actor. Yeah. And that's not to say that can't work, because there are triple threats who've done that, but it's a lot harder and you gotta be a very self-aware.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So let's talk about his direction though for a second, because I think, like I mentioned, there's multiple montages, and the montages are actually kind of cool. Like it's like again, a caricature, and I I appreciated them. And then the music, there's three songs that Madonna does as Breathless, and she actually like released an album called I'm Breathless on the heels of this with songs, those three songs plus others inspired by the movie. Like, and she's a great performer. Like, I don't know if she's a great singer-songwriter, but like as a performer, I think she has a presence, and she has a presence in this movie. What's interesting is each of the songs that she performs in this movie, she's doing it like on stage as a review in this club, but they're cut with like either like mob boss, like the mob guys like doing crime, or there's one I think Tracy and the kid are at the diner or something, or like they just like cutting to other things happening in the movie instead of staying on Madonna and these Steven Sondheim written songs, which is an interesting choice. It's a choice, right? Like when I some of the commentators that I read were like felt that. That choice diminishes the power of those songs. Like, just let them be. Like, let them be Madonna. If it's a vehicle for Madonna, let Madonna do her thing. Rather than having it just be a voiceover, like a soundtrack to these other things that are happening at Montage. And I actually, I'm not sure I would have put my finger on that as a critique without having read other people saying it. But once they said it, I was like, oh yeah. I actually think that's right. Because that like she is such a presence. And like you can't help but be affected by this gorgeous woman. And her choreography was that sort of 19, late 30s, early 40s, like with other women dancers behind her that's like adorable. And I don't know. It I found it compelling, but it kept cutting away from that. So that was an interesting choice that maybe was him taking the sort of idea of montage too far, because the montage, oh, we have a lot of montages in this movie. And the kid eating and the newspapers, and like there's all these montages. But maybe that was one where like it went too, like it might have been stronger. I it was just something that I noticed that, you know, you have a Stephen Sondheim song and you have this top of her career pop star, but you don't let the camera stay on her. So I don't know that I have any more to say about that, but I was interested to read that and it it stuck with me in other commentators.
SPEAKER_00:That actually that strikes me with So that strikes me with something. There is a I I remember reading in Tina Faye's bossy pants years ago. She talked about in the writer's room, the way that she set up her writer's room was best idea wins. So, like, could be, you know, wet behind the ears, new writer, never been in a writer's room before. If their idea was the best one, that's the one that was going to go on the show. Like, don't get egos involved, best idea wins. And that's something I have been thinking about in terms of directing choices, in part because of, as Treso will tell you, as she told everyone at our most recent hangout, I'm a little hyper-fixated right now on a show called Heated Rivalry, and the directing choices are unbelievable. They are amazing. And part of what I think is what makes Jacob Tierney, the director, so good, is he recognizes the best idea, like when it's best for the actors to be showcased, when it's best to let the editing to do to be showcased, when it's best to let the music, when it's best to let the intimacy coordinator do her thing, when it's like, and so that's something I'm thinking about too is like, and when you're talking about an auteur, it can be hard because your ego gets involved and you're like, oh no, I want this to be about this, rather than like, no, what's strongest right here is Madonna's amazing performance. And so, like, and I can't even imagine, like, I have a hard enough time as a writer murdering my own darlings, you know, and knowing like what's strongest here is not having this turn of phrase that I'm really proud of. So I can't imagine being like, oh, I'm so proud of this, and I gotta cut it because someone else did something that was better. Um but that I think is I think a really interesting critique and can make the difference between a movie that we forget and one that could have been like a masterpiece, potentially. Right.
SPEAKER_01:Which is what they were really hoping for. That's what Disney was hoping for, that's what Beatty was hoping for. Like they were hoping it would be like Batman the year before. And but there's only one. There's only one Dick Tracy. It did not become a franchise. It was one and done. And I don't know. I wonder if some of this, these sorts of choices that I'm pointing to, if they had been different, if it would have been more successful. It was not unsuccessful. Like Roger Ebert gave it four stars, right? Like it made over a hundred million at the box office, which was the mark of success at the time. So it made money. It was like 47 million exclusive of marketing to make. So it was not a flop, but it was not the sort of launch of a phenomenon that they had hoped that it would be. So, and I don't know. I, you know, it's impossible to say if some of these choices that other critics and I are pointing to would have made the difference. But it it is interesting to note.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's and it's also it's very much a like, if we mention it, people will be like, oh yeah, I forgot about that. Like this is not something where like people go, Oh, that's my favorite movie. No, it does it does not have the kind of it didn't even come back as sort of a cult classic the way that some some even with because like the design, the visual of it, I think is a masterpiece. Yeah. Yeah. Even with that, that can't save it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So we're running a little short on time. Let me just quickly talk about. I think I mentioned that, you know, we see Tracy kind of break the rules as a cop in terms of like his coercion of witnesses. We also, he risks his life in breaking the rules. Like there's this when the big boy sort of takes control of the all of the mobsters, Spud Spatoli or whatever he is, says, like, I'm not in. I'm I'm gonna take my chances by myself. And when he goes out to it, his car explodes. When that happens, Tracy is climbing on the ledge, like trying to look in the window at the club. And there are cops on the street looking up at him, going, What are you doing? Like in the like stage whisper, like, the DA will have your ass. You can't do that. You don't have a warrant. Like they're like, and meanwhile, he almost dies because then the mobsters are looking out the window, the ones like flat top who knows that the car is going to explode. He has to like jump on a light pole and like fireman pole down and barely makes it out. And it's not. This is why I say it's wrapped up in the toxic masculinity, because it's not like that moment is not even about like being a good cop, right? Or about getting the information. It really is about showboating almost. Like when he interrogates Mumbles through I think one could maybe call torture, maybe because like he knew Mumbles knew something. So maybe you could argue that he was like means justifies the ends. But this, like climbing on the walls, like and like breaking and entering and whatever, like what?
SPEAKER_00:So if I could get meta here, this is kind of like Warren Beatty making the movie.
unknown:Yeah, maybe.
SPEAKER_00:And like and inserting himself into more parts of the movie than is really like if he had just called for if he had just directed it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, maybe. So in the last minute before I wrap up, I will say I did not do a lot of research on this piece of it, but this speaking of like the meta, originally Sean Young had been cast as Tess True Hart, and she was dismissed because she and Beatty didn't get along. Beatty says she was difficult to work with. Young says she rebuffed his advances. I believe her. So that's like the world was meant to rearrange to the singular man's like, no wonder he put himself in the middle of this film and this love trying.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and Sean Young, her career has not done what it should have done.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I don't know if it's true, but the Carly Simon song You're So Vain, one of the things, one of the rumors is that it's about him. It's about Warren Beatty.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You probably think the song is about you, Warren.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. So 1990, Dick Tracy, Warren Beatty was the director and the star and the script actor. He wanted to have screenwriting credit, but apparently the screenwriters' guild was like, no, those guys get it. So in the prose column, which have been recognized by the Oscars, this film is gorgeous. It really succeeded in Beatty's vision of bringing to life with live action the Sunday comics of the Dick Tracy comic strip. The choices that the art director made of only using a limited color palette of like the seven colors that the colorist would have had on the Sunday pages, and the matte backdrops and the costuming and the prosthetic makeup effects to make the villains look like their drawn characters from the comic strip are just gorgeous, just really well done. And the actual like script, the actual story and the characters that are embodied inhabit these embodied drawings, not much there. Pacino's big boy, Al Pacino's big boy, like does not miss an opportunity to chew the scenery, which means overact, Elizabeth. But it's like it just works because he's a comic book villain, and so he's a comic or a comic strip villain, and so he's a comic strip villain, and it really works. He's like, I just got into it and I enjoyed it. Not that I didn't, not that I believed it, but I was moved into the world of the world building of the story with Pacino's performance. Less so with Warren Beatty's performance as Dick Tracy, who feels just sort of like there, like just there. And like I was watching an actor act as opposed to watching a character inhabit a scene. This movie had an all-star cast. It had there, like they really went all out. So Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, Mandy Patinkin, Madonna, what's her face, Glenn Healy, like all-star cast. Really amazing. Like every character, I'm like, oh, that guy. Oh, that guy, which is really amazing. And also like so forgettable, which I think is the effect of a so-so script. And it's a so-so script in part because it was one dude who cast himself as the main character and as the director and as the writer. He tried to do all the things, and so it became like this is all about me, Warren Beatty, which didn't end up serving the story. Madonna, still not convinced she's a great actress by this film, but she certainly has a presence. One commentator said that she always her lines delivery always seemed to land on the wrong side of the line between Vulgar and Sultry. I think that is an accurate depiction of how she kind of showed up in this film. It is very sexy. Like, wow. She has a lot of assets. And also, like a little too much. I was left. Well, there's I didn't learn anything. I didn't like, not that I didn't learn anything about Madonna, but like it just it ended up being like, like I said earlier, she was just like a vagina in love. Like she didn't actually like talk about it. I didn't understand what I didn't understand. Well, that's my point. I didn't understand what motivated her. And I I would have appreciated like having something there, some human thing there besides just sexuality. Though she has that in space. We spent a lot of time talking about masculinity and sort of the picture of manhood that is this singular, special, bestest boy who can who's the only one who can do all the things and who therefore the universe rearranges around his wants and desires. And his he doesn't have to follow the rules. Rules are for other people. And yet we still are meant to think that he has a very solid moral compass because he he declines the bride. So the rules that don't apply to him aren't important rules because he does follow the rules that matter. So it's a like you want it both ways. I'm out of time. That's what I remember. This movie, I mean, it's worth watching, even just for the visuals and the music. You're not gonna be moved to tears. What are you gonna bring me next time? I am bringing you my deep thoughts on Roxanne. Oh, I loved that movie.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:All right. And listeners, if you want to hear a little bit more, go over to our Patreon because we are about to hit end record and then record again on shit we forgot to say about Dick Tracy. Alrighty. This show is a labor of love, but that doesn't make it free to produce. If you enjoy it even half as much as we do, please consider helping to keep us overthinking. You can support us at our Patreon. There's a link in the show notes. Or leave a positive review so others can find us. And of course, share the show with your people. Thanks for listening. Our theme music is Professor Umlaut by Kevin McLeod from Incompotech.com. Find full music credits in the show notes. Thank you to Resonate Recordings for editing today's episode. Until next time, remember, pop culture is still culture. And shouldn't you know what's in your head?