DICK TRACY: And The Spider Gang (1937) Ralph Byrd & Kay Hughes | Action, Comedy, Crime | B&W

Dick Tracy (1937) is a 15-chapter Republic movie serial starring Ralph Byrd based on the Dick Tracy comic strip by Chester Gould. It was directed by Alan James and Ray Taylor.

SYNOPSIS
A master criminal called The Spider puts the famous detective's brother under a hypnotic spell and turns him against Dick.

Dick Tracy's foe for this serial is the crime boss and masked mystery villain the Spider/the Lame One (both names are used) and his Spider Ring.[3] In the process of various crimes, including using his flying wing and sound weapon to destroy the Bay Bridge in San Francisco and stealing an experimental "speed plane", The Spider captures Dick Tracy's brother, Gordon. The Spider's minion, Dr. Moloch, performs a brain operation on Gordon Tracy to turn him evil, making him secretly part of the Spider Ring and so turning brother against brother.

CAST & CREW
Ralph Byrd as Dick Tracy
Kay Hughes as Gwen Andrews
Smiley Burnette as Mike McGurk
Lee Van Atta as Junior
John Picorri as Dr Moloch
Richard Beach as Gordon Tracy (pre-operation in Chapter 1)
Carleton Young as Gordon Tracy (post-operation in Chapter 1)
Fred Hamilton as Steve Lockwood
Francis X. Bushman as Clive Anderson
The above cast members appear in the opening credits in "cameo" display — sequential pictures of each actor with his/her name (and sometimes character name) superimposed at the bottom of the screen — for the first episode, followed by a listing of supporting players. Subsequent chapters simply listed the stars on one screen and the same supporting cast a second. This approach to cast display was used by Republic from its first serial through Haunted Harbor in 1944. Universal serials presented a similar approach to cast display until 1940, only in their case, the star-cameos appeared with the first 3-4 episodes, and subsequent episodes listed these names usually followed, on a scrolling cast list, by part, but not often all, of the supporting players who had been named on the episodes with the cameos. Occasionally, a new player or two might be added. Columbia only a few times adopted this approach to displaying the cast of its serials. Republic, Universal, Warner Bros. Pictures, and some independents also used star "cameos" in numbers of their B pictures during the 1930s.

Supporting cast
John Dilson as Ellery Brewster
Wedgwood Nowell as H. T. Clayton
Theodore Lorch as Paterno
Edwin Stanley as Walter Odette
Harrison Greene as Cloggerstein
Herbert Weber as Tony Martino
Buddy Roosevelt as Burke
George DeNormand as Flynn
Byron K. Foulger as Kovitch

The above cast members appear in the opening credits as simply a list of the actor's names.

Directed by Alan James, Ray Taylor
Written by Morgan B. Cox, George Morgan, Barry Shipman, Winston Miller, Chester Gould (comic strip)
Produced by Nat Levine
Cinematography William Nobles, Edgar Lyons
Edited by Helene Turner, Edward Todd, William Witney
Music by Harry Grey
Distributed by Republic Pictures
Release dates February 20, 1937 (U.S. serial), December 27, 1937 (U.S. feature)
Running time 15 chapters / 290 minutes (serial), 73 minutes (feature)
Country United States
Language English
Budget $112,334 (negative cost: $127,640)

NOTES
Dick Tracy was budgeted at $112,334 although the final negative cost was $127,640 (a $15,306, or 13.6%, overspend). It was the most expensive Republic serial until S O S Coast Guard was released later in the year.

It was filmed between 30 November and 24 December 1936 under the working titles Adventures of Dick Tracy and The Spider Ring. The serial's production number was 420.

In this serial, Dick Tracy is a G-Man (FBI) in San Francisco rather than a Midwestern city police detective as in the comic strip. Most of the Dick Tracy supporting cast and rogues gallery were also dropped and new, original characters used instead (for instance the characters of Tracy's girlfriend Gwen Andrews and his detective partner Mike McGurk were stand-ins for Tess Trueheart and Pat Patton respectively). Dick Tracy creator Chester Gould approved the script despite these changes.

There were three sequels to this serial: Dick Tracy Returns (1938), Dick Tracy's G-Men (1939), and Dick Tracy vs. Crime, Inc. (1941). They were all permitted by an interpretation of the original contract, which allowed a "series or serial". That meant that Dick Tracy's creator, Chester Gould, was only paid for the rights to produce this serial but not for any of the sequels.

Chapter titles
The Spider Strikes
The Bridge of Terror
The Fur Pirates
Death Rides the Sky
Brother Against Brother
Dangerous Waters
The Ghost Town Mystery
Battle in the Clouds
The Stratosphere Adventure
The Gold Ship
Harbor Pursuit
The Trail of the Spider
The Fire Trap
The Devil in White
Brothers United