Dick Tracy
Year: 1937
USA
Republic Movie Serial
Nr Of Episodes: 15
Genre: Comic-Book Superhero Film, Detective Film
Total Playing Time: 5 hours, 29 minutes
B&W
Subtitles: No
 
http://akas.imdb.com/title/tt0028785/

Episodes (all AVI):

1.The Spider Strikes 
2.The Bridge of Terror 
3.The Fur Pirates
4.Death Rides the Sky
5.Brother Against Brother
6.Dangerous Waters 
7.The Ghost Town Mystery
8.Battle in the Clouds
9.The Stratosphere Adventure
10.The Gold Ship
11.Harbor Pursuit 
12.The Trail of the Spider
13.The Fire Trap 
14.The Devil in White
15.Brothers United

Starring:
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
Carleton Young as Gordon Tracy 
Fred Hamilton as Steve Lockwood
Francis X. Bushman as Clive Anderson

Directed by:
Alan James and Ray Taylor

Producer: 
Nat Levine
 
http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue04/infocus/dicktracy.htm

Chester Gould's jut-jawed plainclothesman Dick Tracy first came to the screen in this 15-chapter Republic serial. Ralph Byrd stars as Tracy, a role which both brought him fame and typecast him for life. For the purposes of cliffhanging suspense, the Republic writing staff altered the Tracy "mythos" as set forth in Gould's daily comic strip

This is a great treat for Dick Tracy fans. Before television we had to go to the Saturday morning movie matinees to see our action heros.
Cartoonist Chester Gould created this action hero in the early 1930's and by the middle 30's the FBI and gangsters were in all the newspaper & radio headlines. So Gould countered with Dick Tracy G-man (in the movie serials) & Dick Tracy cop hero in the comic strip.

The "Dick Tracy" (1937) Republic Pictures 15 episode action serial launched Ralph Byrds career as the super crime solving G-man/Sherlock Holmes sleuth. The movie version was always the international view while the comic strip was the local city crime storyline.

All in all, this is definitely one of the better serials. As an earlier Republic serial, you won't see as much stunt action, choreographed fights and telegraphed chapter endings as in the later ones, but the elements are still there. This is one of the times I wish there was a 4 and a half star designation.