Dick Tracy's G-Men Reviews

This is…fine, I guess, as these things go. It’s hard to muster up much enthusiasm or spite for Dick Tracy’s G-Men. It’s improbable like any of these movie serials, has a pleasing lead actor, there’s contortions into ridiculous shapes to keep the drama/action going, but it all just feels so meh. A persistent sense of autopilot lingers in every frame, same goes for the sense that this is Dick Tracy slapped into a generic adventure without any of his colorful or outlandish supporting players and rogues.

The major saving grace of G-Men is Ralph Byrd as Dick Tracy. He plays the part with quotes around the action at all times, and frequently smirks to himself during the more credibility straining moments as if to single to the audience that he’s in on the joke. He’s a serious joy in his square-jawed charisma that it’s a shame the serial couldn’t muster up a better villain for him to tangle with. Where Byrd seems continually engaged and even ironically modern in his square peg gumshoe, Irving Pichel just seems bored and asleep at the wheel as Zarnoff.

Any comic book adaptation, especially one from pulp origins, lives or dies based on its antagonist and supporting players, and it’s here that G-Men persistently trips. There’s no Tess Trueheart, but Jennifer Jones as Gwen Andrews, a thankless secretarial role that caused Jones to run to New York for some challenging acting gigs. Junior has been scrubbed, and good luck finding any of the colorful gangsters from the comics. Zarnoff had potential, but Pichel can’t commit to his mad scientist with shadowy ties to the Three Powers (we’re in full-on WWII paranoia here). It emerges as a fine if overly padded and eye-rolling inducing bit of thrill-seeking, but it’s easy to see why the Dick Tracy serials faded so quickly after this entry. Republic released four serials, with G-Men as the third, and this one is too aloof, too sleepy, too lacking in personality to make for a viable, long-lasting franchise.