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Dick Tracy: (Danny Elfman) This ego-stroking Warren Beatty film
was an attempt by the Walt Disney camp to take advantage of the explosively powerful
success of Warner Brothers'
Batman a year before, even to the extent of
teaming with Warner to produce and market this picture. But due to a poor script
adaptation and endless cuts and re-shoots,
Dick Tracy received mixed
reactions from critics and audiences never embraced the occasionally impressive
visuals. Wacky make-up, famous supporting actors, several Oscar nominations in
technical categories, and a sultry performance by Madonna couldn't even save the
project; nor could rumors of kinky off-screen activities between Beatty and Madonna
generate substantial interest. In composer Danny Elfman's evolution of superhero
themes,
Dick Tracy ended up being the odd man out, never quite fitting into
the rest of Elfman's developing career like his better known efforts. Elfman's
approach to
Dick Tracy was different from that of
Batman, because it
is evident from the start that he realized the need to inject some character and
life into the otherwise restless film. He did his best to whip up a frenzy of
swinging, jazzy rhythms, and he even tried to raise Gershwin from the dead for his
bloated, melodramatic theme of romance. The music for
Dick Tracy operates at
a slapstick, cartoonish speed and, without the accompaniment of the film, it becomes
a collection of cues that are only loosely held together by Elfman's general style
of writing at the time. That style borrows heavily from
Batman and
Darkman, attempting at every turn to balance the tragedy of those other
figures with the flightier needs of
Dick Tracy. To that end, a certain amount
of
Pee-Wee mayhem is to be heard. But with such a schizophrenic score as this
one, you can go from the swinging, explosive energy of "Crime Spree" to the tragic
Darkman motifs of "Slimy D.A." at any moment. With
Dick Tracy, you
never know what you're going to get, and it is that lack of cohesive identity,
despite some great ideas from Elfman, that ultimately restrains the score as a
standalone listening experience.
The strangest aspect of
Dick Tracy is its inability to
establish the film as one of major crime. Elfman relies instead on a few select,
wacky character cues of off-the-wall swing and, of course, the overblown string
themes of romance. Those efforts allow Elfman to achieve a film noir effect in the
score, but many of his ideas along those lines are interrupted by the composer's
second, chaotic half of the underscore. The title theme that Elfman assigns to Dick
Tracy is pompous, extravagant, and sometimes downright annoying in its tendency to
begin its progression, but never finish it and leave you hanging (this is another
technique at which Elfman succeeded better in
Batman). The softer interludes
and self-contained ideas composed for the two female characters are much more
interesting, and they easily develop the heart that Tracy's character never
realizes. The slurring of ascending notes in a lush string ensemble is definitely a
'tip of the hat' (as Elfman calls it) to Gershwin's style of the story's era. The
theme's film noir elegance is hindered only by the fact that Elfman can't seem to
take any of his themes in
Dick Tracy seriously, offering them in disjointed
pieces throughout the score. On the other hand, the third track on the
Dick
Tracy album, "Crime Spree," is one of Elfman's most original compositions and
has inspired a few interesting interpretations on re-recorded film music
compilations. The delightful fun exhibited in this cue proves that Elfman could have
really generated a storm of vivacity to help move this score at a great tempo had
the opportunity presented itself. Unfortunately, most of this discussion is moot
when considering the score's editing in the film itself. The "Main Titles" heard
on the album were subjected to a last-minute re-scoring effort, and many of the
performances of Tess' theme, as well as that great "Crime Spree" cue, were not fully
utilized in the final cut. It is suspected that Beatty himself is to blame for what
Elfman called an "insane" experience on the project. While the score received a
better mix (including 5.1 treatment) on DVD, the album is still the only way to go
when considering Elfman's
Dick Tracy music. It is a shame that Madonna's
Academy-Award nominated song from the film did not find its way onto the score
release. Overall, both this score and film stunk of inconsistency at the time, and
the work has never seemed to pervasively convince all of Elfman's general collectors
of its merits. The ideas in the score aren't without merit, but their presentation
is typically sloppy and underdeveloped.
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is 3.18 (in 61 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.17
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
