Dick Tracy's G-Men
| Dick Tracy's G-Men | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Directed by |
William Witney John English |
| Produced by | Robert M Beche |
| Written by |
Franklin Adreon Ronald Davidson Barry Shipman Sol Shor Chester Gould (comic strip) |
| Starring |
Ralph Byrd Irving Pichel Ted Pearson Phyllis Isley Walter Miller George Douglas |
| Cinematography | William Nobles |
| Distributed by | Republic Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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15 chapters / 263 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $159,876 (negative cost: $163,530) |
Dick Tracy's G-Men (1939) is a 15-Chapter Republic Movie Serial based on the Dick Tracy comic strip by Chester Gould. It was directed by William Witney and John English.
This serial was the fifteenth of the sixty-six produced by Republic and the third Dick Tracy serial (there would be one more, Dick Tracy vs Crime Inc, in 1941). As with all four Dick Tracy serials, Ralph Byrd plays the lead. This time he faces Irving Pichel as the spy with a vendetta, Zarnoff. Future Academy Award winner Jennifer Jones co-stars as Gwen Andrews.
"G-Man" is a contemporary slang term for an agent of the FBI. In the comic strip, Dick Tracy is actually a detective in the police force of an unnamed Midwestern city resembling Chicago. This was changed for the serial.
International spy, Zarnoff, in the employ of "The Three Powers" (presumably a fictionalized reference to the Axis) is captured by Dick Tracy at the start of the serial, tried and sentenced to death. However, through the use of a rare drug embedded by his agents in the evening newspaper, he escapes from the gas chamber. His men pick up his "corpse" by ambushing the hearse and administering another counter-drug. He continues his espionage plans, while taking the opportunity of revenge on Tracy.
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