Dick Tracy depicts the detective's romantic relationships with Breathless Mahoney and Tess Trueheart, as well as his conflicts with crime boss Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice and his henchmen.

Reviews ranged from favorable to mixed, with positive comments on the performances (particularly Pacino and Madonna), production design, make up effects, music, and Beatty's direction, but negative ones on the screenplay and characterization.

In 1938,[5][6] a young street kid witnesses the massacre of a group of mobsters at the hands of Flattop and Itchy, two hoods on the payroll of Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice, who leave a bullet-riddled message for police detective Dick Tracy.

Tracy leads a seemingly unsuccessful raid on Club Ritz, which is actually a diversion to hide Officer "Bug" Bailey inside with a covert listening device.

At the time, the film rights were owned by Michael Laughlin, who gave up his option from Tribune Media Services after he was unsuccessful in pitching Dick Tracy to Hollywood studios.

Floyd Mutrux and Art Linson purchased the film rights from the Tribune in 1977,[7] and, in 1980, United Artists became interested in financing and distributing Dick Tracy.

The deal fell through when Chester Gould, creator of the Dick Tracy comic strip, insisted on strict financial and artistic control.

Universal put John Landis forward as a candidate for director, courted Clint Eastwood for the title role, and commissioned Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr. to write the screenplay.

"[9] Cash and Epps' simple orders from Landis were to write the script in a 1930s pulp magazine atmosphere, and center it with Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice as the primary villain.

The writers wrote two drafts for Landis; Max Allan Collins, then-writer of the Dick Tracy comic strip, remembers reading one of them.

"[9] In addition to Beatty and Eastwood, other actors considered for the lead role included Harrison Ford, Richard Gere, Tom Selleck and Mel Gibson.

Pre-production had progressed as far as set building, but the film was stalled when artistic control issues arose with Beatty, a fan of the Dick Tracy comic strip.

When Jeffrey Katzenberg and Michael Eisner moved from Paramount to the Walt Disney Studios, Dick Tracy resurfaced, with Beatty as director, producer and leading man.

[14] Beatty and regular collaborator Bo Goldman significantly rewrote the dialogue, but lost a Writers Guild arbitration and did not receive screen credit.

The studio rejected his manuscript: "I wound up doing an eleventh hour rewrite that was more faithful to the screenplay, even while I made it much more consistent with the strip," Collins continued, "and fixed as many plot holes as I could.

"[24] Disney did not like this version either, but accepted based on Beatty's insistence to incorporate some of Collins's writing into the shooting script, which solved the plot hole concerns.

For a brief sequence in which The Kid dashes in front of a speeding locomotive, only 150 feet (46 m) of real track was laid; the train was a two-foot (60 cm) scale model, and the surrounding trainyard a matte painting.

"[33] In addition, Beatty hired acclaimed songwriter Stephen Sondheim to write five original songs: "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)", "More", "Live Alone and Like It", "Back in Business" and "What Can You Lose?".

Buena Vista Television aired a half-hour syndicated special beginning June 13, 1990, titled Dick Tracy: Behind the Badge...Behind the Scenes, with details about the making of the film.

[36] Reruns of The Dick Tracy Show began airing to coincide with the release of the film, but stations in Los Angeles and New York pulled and edited the episodes when Asian and Hispanic groups protested the characters Joe Jitsu and Go Go Gomez as offensive stereotypes.

[42][43] A theme park ride for Disneyland, Disney-MGM Studios and Euro Disney Resort called Dick Tracy's Crime Stoppers was planned but ultimately never built.

The site's critics' consensus reads: "Dick Tracy is stylish, unique, and an undeniable technical triumph, but it ultimately struggles to rise above its two-dimensional artificiality.

[58] Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, "Dick Tracy has just about everything required of an extravaganza: a smashing cast, some great Stephen Sondheim songs, all of the technical wizardry that money can buy, and a screenplay that observes the fine line separating true comedy from lesser camp.

[60] In his heavily negative review for The Washington Post, Desson Thomson criticized Disney's hyped marketing campaign and the film in general.

He also found similarities with Batman, in that both films involve "a loner hero, a grotesque villain, a blond bombshell, a marketable pop soundtrack and a no-mercy merchandising campaign", Travers continued.

"[62] Although Max Allan Collins (then a Dick Tracy comic-strip writer) had conflicts with Disney concerning the novelization, he gave the finished film a positive review.

"[88] Tribune believed the situation would be settled quickly,[90] and was confident enough to begin developing a Dick Tracy live-action television series with Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Robert Newmyer and Outlaw Productions.

"Mr. Beatty's conduct and wrongful claims have effectively locked away certain motion picture and television rights to the Dick Tracy property", lawyers for Tribune wrote in a filing.

Judge Pregerson wrote in his order that "Beatty's commencement of principal photography of his television special on November 8, 2008 was sufficient for him to retain the Dick Tracy rights.

The story is set after the commencement of World War II, and involves Dick Tracy's enlistment in the U.S. Navy, working for their Military Intelligence Division (as he did in the comic strip).