(Some Spoilers) Dick Tracy, Morgan Conway, is out to stop a split-faced killer who's been extorting his victims before he slices them up in this film-noir-like crime drama with former professional wrestler Paul Mazurki as the elusive and hulking murderer.
From his first victim schoolteacher Dorothy Stafford, Mary Currier, to the threat on the mayors, William Halligan,life the killer sent extortion letters to them wanting from $500.00, from Stafford, to $10,000.00, from the mayor, in extortion money. The only person who the killer actually got to pay him off was Willbert Thomas with the $1,000.00 in small bills, that his letter to him demanded, also was later found slashed to death. It turned out that someone who knew the murderer and he motives for his singling out people who had, what at first seemed, nothing in common with each other and thus blackmailing them without the killers knowledge. In the end it would lead to him becoming one of Splitface's victim.
There's a number of confusing plot lines in "Dick Tracy" mostly with the movie going into the murder weapon, a surgical knife, that Alexis "Splitface" Benning used in his crimes; why go through all the trouble of breaking into a funeral home to steal it, together with two other like-wise knives, and thus leave clues to his identity?
The part of Professor Linwood Starling, Trevor Bardette, was also a bit strange. He looks into his crystal ball and seems to predict his own death at the hands of Splitface but later is shocked and surprised when Splitface recites word for word what he said, by looking into his ball, before he murdered him! was Starling really a clairvoyant or did he just make a lucky, or unlucky for him, guess? There's also the funeral director Deathridge, Milton Person, what exactly did he have to do with either Splitface or Starling and why did Splitface murder him? It's never really brought out in the movie and the only connection he had with the killer was that he, Splitface, used a knife that he stole from him to do his dirty work.
The clever Splitface let his guard down by being accidentally seen by Dick Tracy's girlfriend Tess,Ann Jeffreys, who he was determined to find and shut up forever. When he did find Tess instead of murdering her, like all of his previous victims, Splitface kidnaps her and is later tracked down by Tracy and the police putting an end to his reign of terror.
The reason for Splitface's murder spree, and why he targeted the person that he did for elimination, becomes obvious when it turns out that all of them just happened to be jurors on his trial for murdering, by cutting to ribbons, his girlfriend. The jurors sentenced him to a long prison term which made Splitface very angry at them.
The final scene with the powerful six foot six 230 pound Splitface getting the hell knocked out of him by a slim under six foot Dick Tracy looked embarrassingly staged as well as totally unbelievable.
From his first victim schoolteacher Dorothy Stafford, Mary Currier, to the threat on the mayors, William Halligan,life the killer sent extortion letters to them wanting from $500.00, from Stafford, to $10,000.00, from the mayor, in extortion money. The only person who the killer actually got to pay him off was Willbert Thomas with the $1,000.00 in small bills, that his letter to him demanded, also was later found slashed to death. It turned out that someone who knew the murderer and he motives for his singling out people who had, what at first seemed, nothing in common with each other and thus blackmailing them without the killers knowledge. In the end it would lead to him becoming one of Splitface's victim.
There's a number of confusing plot lines in "Dick Tracy" mostly with the movie going into the murder weapon, a surgical knife, that Alexis "Splitface" Benning used in his crimes; why go through all the trouble of breaking into a funeral home to steal it, together with two other like-wise knives, and thus leave clues to his identity?
The part of Professor Linwood Starling, Trevor Bardette, was also a bit strange. He looks into his crystal ball and seems to predict his own death at the hands of Splitface but later is shocked and surprised when Splitface recites word for word what he said, by looking into his ball, before he murdered him! was Starling really a clairvoyant or did he just make a lucky, or unlucky for him, guess? There's also the funeral director Deathridge, Milton Person, what exactly did he have to do with either Splitface or Starling and why did Splitface murder him? It's never really brought out in the movie and the only connection he had with the killer was that he, Splitface, used a knife that he stole from him to do his dirty work.
The clever Splitface let his guard down by being accidentally seen by Dick Tracy's girlfriend Tess,Ann Jeffreys, who he was determined to find and shut up forever. When he did find Tess instead of murdering her, like all of his previous victims, Splitface kidnaps her and is later tracked down by Tracy and the police putting an end to his reign of terror.
The reason for Splitface's murder spree, and why he targeted the person that he did for elimination, becomes obvious when it turns out that all of them just happened to be jurors on his trial for murdering, by cutting to ribbons, his girlfriend. The jurors sentenced him to a long prison term which made Splitface very angry at them.
The final scene with the powerful six foot six 230 pound Splitface getting the hell knocked out of him by a slim under six foot Dick Tracy looked embarrassingly staged as well as totally unbelievable.