Over thirty years after he played him in the 1990 film, actor Warren Beatty is back as iconic crimefighter Dick Tracy for a special that has just premiered on TCM.
The half-hour “Dick Tracy Special: Tracy Zooms In” sees film critics Leonard Maltin and Ben Mankiewicz interview “famous detective Dick Tracy about his life and career, with a surprise appearance by legendary actor and director Warren Beatty.”
The reason for this special is likely tied to the franchise’s rights and a federal court decision (see here). Essentially Beatty has to bring back the character on screen in a TV special every now and then as a way to retain his hold on the film rights to the character.
The now 85 years old Beatty did a similar interview with Maltin back in 2008 (and is available on YouTube) that popped up out of nowhere and aired only once. That time was an in-studio interview whereas this was done as a Zoom call.
The interview quickly goes meta as at one point they interview both Beatty as himself and Beatty in character as Tracy. Like with the last special, his Tracy character complains about the 1990 film and has major issues with Beatty’s interpretation of the character.
What little reaction there has been to the special so far, no-one was really made aware of it until a few hours before it aired, have called it “bizarre”.
It has also raised questions as to why Beatty wants to hold onto the rights as there’s no sequel or TV series version planned, the film hasn’t scored a 4K release and isn’t readily available to stream beyond being available to purchase on Apple TV & Amazon.
The special can be viewed below:
Source: Polygon
