Book Review: The Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Volume 4: 1936-1938, by Chester Gould (2008)

The cover of The Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Volume 4: 1936-1938, published by IDW Publishing in 2008.

The Complete Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy Volume 4 takes the action adventure/police procedural strip from July of 1936 to January of 1938. Volume 3, which could be subtitled “looking for sidekicks,” as Gould tosses out one supporting character after another, is probably slightly stronger than Volume 4, which ends on a high note with “the Blank” storyline, but definitely has some less-than-stellar moments. As Max Allan Collins writes in his introduction to Volume 4, Chester Gould is really marking time here. 

Volume 3 ended with something of a cliffhanger, as the gun moll Mimi was about to have her infected hand amputated. Because the Lips Manlis and Mimi storyline straddles Volumes 3 and 4, I wrote a separate, all-encompassing review of it. Mimi proves to be a much more entertaining character than Lips Manlis ever was. In the early weeks of Volume 4, we thankfully get the final appearance of Memphis Smith, Gould’s attempt at a Stepin Fetchit-type of African American character. Fortunately, Memphis was only in the strip for three months.

In Jay Maeder’s book Dick Tracy: The Official Biography, Maeder writes that Mimi’s amputation originally consisted of “an operating-room sequence so stomach-turning that the syndicate refused to have any part of it and ordered most of a week’s worth of continuity redrawn.” (p.59) Reading the strips that actually ran, Mimi’s amputation really isn’t grisly at all—it’s the thought of having your hand amputated that gives the reader the creeps. After her hand was amputated, Mimi always carried a shawl or towel over her hand, “doubtless by directive of Gould’s syndicate bosses.” (Maeder, p.96) 

Mimi briefly comes on to an oblivious Pat Patton, August 12, 1936. It kind of looks like Mimi is feeling up Pat with her right hand.

In these visually stunning two panels, Mimi stabs Pat, August 13, 1936. These are great examples of Chester Gould's drawing style, and the panels show how far his style had evolved in the almost 5 years since the beginning of the strip. There are no words, because none are needed to convey the brutal action.

Mimi proves she’s not someone to be trifled with, as the first thing she does after having her hand amputated is swim out to a boat in the harbor. The owner of the boat is Toyee, an Asian gangster. Toyee won’t be in the strip for very long, because he has the bright idea of having himself sewn up in a giant fish to escape detection by the police. Ewww. 

Mimi’s sole purpose in life is to hurl herself at Lips Manlis and win him back. (At the end of Volume 3, Lips went straight and took the name Bob Honor.) She kidnaps him not once, but twice. She’s nothing if not determined. Once Mimi has Lips in her clutches again, she drugs him and marries him. Mimi’s plan doesn’t work, as Lips slugs her as soon as he understands what’s happened. Mimi’s desperation is actually kind of sad, as she still holds on to this dream that she can get Lips back. “You’re not through with me, Lips! I won’t let you be!” she says to him. She even wants him to grow his mustache back and comb his hair like he used to. At this point, Mimi is kind of like Jimmy Stewart at the end of Vertigo, where he’s trying to convince Kim Novak to dress up like the dead woman he’s obsessed with. 

Mimi trying to repeat the past, September 6, 1936. Note the towel over her amputated left hand.

Lips goes along with Mimi’s grooming for a while, and then Dick Tracy shows up and Lips makes it clear to Mimi that he’s through with her. When it becomes clear that Lips is going to turn her over to the cops, Mimi pulls a vial out of her garter top and drinks poison. It makes sense that Mimi kills herself, since all her actions revolve around one goal: getting Lips back. But even when she gets him back and convinces him to change his hairstyle back to how it was, it doesn’t work. She’s like Jay Gatsby. Mimi would definitely agree with Gatsby’s famous quote: “Can’t repeat the past? Of course you can.” But it doesn’t work out for either Gatsby or Mimi. As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in his short story “The Sensible Thing,” “There are all kinds of love in the world, but never the same love twice.” Mimi should have read her Fitzgerald. 

Mimi is an awful person, but she’s an interesting character. Her default attitude is one of haughty disdain—she’s constantly calling her henchmen “stupid,” or telling them “Don’t ask so many questions!” “Stop the yelling-you idiot!” If she wasn’t so focused on getting Lips back, it’s easy to imagine Mimi presiding over a crime empire of her own. 4 stars.

The Purple Cross Gang at work. For a super secret gang, they never got along all that well. November 25, 1936.

The next storyline is the Purple Cross Gang. If Chester Gould had written this storyline in the 1940’s or 1950’s, it might have been a classic. The elements of a great storyline are here, but it just doesn’t quite come together. Part of the problem is that the Gang is so elaborate—they have purple Maltese crosses tattooed on their tongues! They wear matching chauffeur uniforms, complete with jodhpurs!—but yet their crimes are pedestrian. They just rob banks. Ho-hum. The crosses tattooed on their tongues is such a vivid detail, but it really makes no sense, since it would be so identifiable, and the whole point of the Purple Cross Gang is how secretive they are. 

A stunning panel from February 26, 1937.

Baldy Stark is an interesting character, as he’s the one member of the gang who wants to go straight. It’s a bit melodramatic, sure, but it’s interesting. At the end of the storyline, we see Dick Tracy—the strip and the character—getting involved in the legal process, which doesn’t happen very often. 4 stars. 

A courtroom "fan," eh? That should have been Tracy's first clue that perfume thief Madeline was a weirdo. March 22, 1937.

Perfume thieves: Definitely a letdown after the elaborate Purple Cross Gang, and a very low-stakes story of three young women stealing expensive perfume and re-selling it. Although it does feature the oddly sexual scene of Tracy tied down to a cot, grabbing Madeline’s hair between his teeth and threatening to yank her scalp off. 3 stars.

Dick Tracy offers some advice to the clueless Johnny Mintworth, May 31, 1937. It seems like everyone in Gould's strip in the late 1930's had a globe in their office.

Johnny Mintworth: Based on my reading of Dick Tracy, Chester Gould hated inherited wealth. (See also Fling from the Purple Cross Gang.) If there’s a wealthy young person in the strip, the chances are extremely high that they’re a ne’er-do-well who is about to fall in with a dangerous crowd. Gould is like F. Scott Fitzgerald in this way—they both saw the very rich as morally lax and corruptible. Johnny Mintworth is an heir to a fortune, but he dawdles around, drives drunk, and falls in with the wrong crowd. He was engaged to one of the girls in the perfume thief ring, so he’s not the best judge of character. Mintworth’s storyline eventually centers around insurance fraud, and it feels even more low stakes than the perfume thieves. Johnny Mintworth is just an annoying character, but like other relatively innocent people in Dick Tracy, he ends up paying for his transgressions with his life. 2 stars. 

The Blank, still creepy after all these years. October 23, 1937.

The Blank: an excellent story, as a deformed ex-con hides his face behind a cheesecloth mask and starts gunning down his old partners. This is hands down the best story in the book, and a harbinger of where Dick Tracy will go in the future, with grotesque villains battling the titular detective. 5 stars. 

Volume 4 of Dick Tracy is a mixed bag. It’s bookended by strong storylines, as Mimi and the Blank are both excellent villains, but there’s a lot of filler that bogs down the middle.

Dick Tracy Case Files #2: Mimi and Lips Manlis (1936)

In my review of The Complete Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy Volume 3, I wrote a little about the hoodlum Lips Manlis and his girlfriend Mimi. Since their storyline spans both Volume 3 and Volume 4 of The Complete Dick Tracy, I thought it would be appropriate to discuss their storyline in more detail in a stand-alone post. 

For me, Lips Manlis always conjures up an image of Paul Sorvino playing him in the 1990 movie Dick Tracy. Specifically, I think of the scene where he’s noisily slurping down oysters. In the film, Lips is clearly a powerful gangster, who is rubbed out by Big Boy in a turf war. In the comic strip, it’s never made clear what exactly Lips Manlis does, or has done. Manlis first appears as a suspect in the hotel murders storyline, but he’s not the guilty party. When Tracy questions Manlis again two months later, Tracy suddenly gets the notion that Manlis should go straight. 

Mimi, displaying her default attitude of haughty disdain, June 1, 1936.

It's an interesting plot twist, and Tracy raises some fascinating questions about human nature, and how we perceive people. As Tracy says to Pat Patton in the May 16, 1936 strip: “Did it ever occur to you that maybe a gangster wouldn’t be a gangster if he was treated like an ordinary human?” But because we don’t really know much about Lips Manlis, it’s hard to be very invested in his rehabilitation. And Manlis’ desire to go straight happens so quickly, it doesn’t have much drama in it. The guy just tried to blow up Tracy in an elevator, and now Tracy thinks he can go straight? The storyline is an interesting contrast to the later Dick Tracy strips of the 1960’s and 1970’s, where Gould was often critical of the judicial process, and the whole “innocent until proven guilty” thing. 

Tracy gives Manlis a new name, calling him “Bob Honor.” And while Manlis’ rehabilitation might seem like a lame beginning to a new storyline, it does introduce us to his girlfriend, Mimi, who will wreak havoc and chaos in the strip throughout the summer of 1936. Ultimately, Mimi proves to be a more interesting villain than Manlis ever was. 

Lips Manlis, now renamed "Bob Honor," tells Mimi to get lost, June 4, 1936.

When Mimi finds Lips at his new job as a watchman at a warehouse, he pretends he doesn’t know her and sends her packing with this cruel parting shot: “I’ll give you two seconds to haul your fat face down the street—before I call a wagon and turn you over to the dicks.” The needless addition of “fat,” which doesn’t describe Mimi at all, makes it a much harsher insult. And “turn you over to the dicks” sounds even worse today, because that’s not really a slang term you can use anymore. 

Bob slaps Mimi, July 7, 1936. That left hand doesn't look too good.

But Mimi proves the adage, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” as she makes it clear she’ll stop at nothing until she gets Lips back. Mimi and her goons kidnap Lips, and plan to make him an unwilling accomplice in their thievery. However, things don’t go according to plan, and Lips ends up capturing the rest of the gang in the getaway truck. Mimi deliberately crashes her car into the truck, causing mayhem that ends with Lips pulling the gang out of the fiery wreckage and handing them over to the cops. Mimi escapes, but her left hand is crushed. As Volume 3 ends, Mimi learns from an underworld doctor that her hand is infected and will have to be amputated. She blithely says, “Then amputate.” This is not a woman to mess with. 

Volume 4 opens with Mimi’s hand being amputated. In Jay Maeder’s book Dick Tracy: The Official Biography, Maeder writes that Mimi’s amputation originally consisted of “an operating-room sequence so stomach-turning that the syndicate refused to have any part of it and ordered most of a week’s worth of continuity redrawn.” (p.59) Reading the strips that actually ran, Mimi’s amputation really isn’t grisly at all—it’s the thought of having your hand amputated that gives the reader the creeps. After her hand was amputated, Mimi always carried a shawl or towel over her hand, “doubtless by directive of Gould’s syndicate bosses.” (Maeder, p.96) 

Immediately after leaving the doctor’s office, Mimi once again proves her status as a tough customer by swimming out to a ship in the harbor. The ship belongs to Toyee, an Asian criminal. Toyee refuses to help Mimi, and his men are about to throw her back in the harbor when Dick Tracy and Pat Patton show up. Toyee and his men get the jump on Dick and Pat, tie them up, and toss them overboard. It’s always interesting to me how criminals in Dick Tracy choose to escalate things. Toyee very quickly goes from “Ugh, there’s no way I’m helping you, Mimi! I don’t want to attract the attention of the police!” To “Let’s needlessly murder these two cops.” There’s some very stylish Gould artwork as Dick and Pat are rescued in a rainstorm at sea.  

Toyee peeks under Mimi's towel, July 19, 1936.

Back on shore, Mimi and Toyee are once again just a step ahead of the cops when Toyee has the crazy idea of having himself sewn up inside of a giant fish to escape the notice of the cops. Ewww. Needless to say, it doesn’t work. 

Mimi briefly comes on to an oblivious Pat Patton, August 12, 1936. It kind of looks like Mimi is feeling up Pat with her right hand.

In these stunning two panels, Mimi stabs Pat, August 13, 1936. These are great examples of Gould's drawing style, and it shows how far his style had evolved in the almost 5 years since the beginning of the strip. There are no words, because none are needed to convey the brutal action.

Mimi gets away by stabbing Pat Patton, and then she kidnaps Lips again! She’s nothing if not determined. Once Mimi has Lips in her clutches again, she drugs him and marries him. (The justice of the peace just thinks Lips is really drunk.) Surprise, surprise, Mimi’s plan doesn’t work. (Lips slugs her as soon as he understands what’s happened.) Mimi’s desperation is actually kind of sad, as she still holds on to this dream that she can get Lips back. “You’re not through with me, Lips! I won’t let you be!” she says to him. She even wants him to grow his mustache back and comb his hair like he used to. At this point, Mimi is kind of like Jimmy Stewart at the end of Vertigo, where he’s trying to convince Kim Novak to dress up like the dead woman he’s obsessed with. 

Lips is less than thrilled to learn that he's now married to Mimi, September 1, 1936.

Mimi trying to repeat the past, September 6, 1936. Note that she's still carrying a towel over her hand.

Mimi approaching Lips with a crazed look in her eyes, September 17, 1936. I think she was supposed to be holding a knife, which somehow got erased. Lips' panicked reaction makes a lot more sense if she's holding a weapon.

Lips smacks Mimi on the jaw, September 18, 1936. You can see a mysterious flying knife, lending credence to my theory that Mimi was supposed to be holding it in the previous day's strip. This is the third time that Lips has slapped or hit Mimi.

Lips goes along with Mimi’s grooming for a while, and then Dick Tracy shows up and Lips makes it clear to Mimi that he’s through with her. The artwork for September 17^th and 18^th makes it seem like Mimi may have had a knife. In the third panel on the 17^th, her hand is empty, but it’s positioned as though she’s holding a knife. When Lips punches her in the jaw on the first panel of the 18^th, a knife is suddenly seen flying through the air. So, where did the knife come from? Was Mimi about to stab Lips? That would make his action of punching her in the jaw a little more called for. My guess is that the knife Mimi should have been holding in the third panel on the 17^th somehow got erased. 

Mimi's death scene, September 19, 1936.

When it becomes clear that Lips is going to turn her over to the cops, Mimi pulls a vial out of her garter top and drinks poison, which kills her instantly. It makes sense that Mimi kills herself, since all her actions revolve around one goal: getting Lips back. But even when she gets him back and convinces him to change his hairstyle back to how it was, it doesn’t work. She’s like Jay Gatsby. Mimi would definitely agree with Gatsby’s famous quote: “Can’t repeat the past? Of course you can.” But it doesn’t work out for either Gatsby or Mimi. As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in his short story “The Sensible Thing,” “There are all kinds of love in the world, but never the same love twice.” Mimi should have read her Fitzgerald. 

Mimi is an awful person, but she’s an interesting character. Her default attitude is one of haughty disdain—she’s constantly calling her henchmen “stupid,” or telling them “Don’t ask so many questions!” “Stop the yelling-you idiot!” If she wasn’t so focused on getting Lips back, it’s easy to imagine Mimi presiding over a crime empire of her own.

Movie Review: Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind, a Documentary Directed by Laurent Bouzereau (2020)

Poster for Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind, 2020.

Natalie Wood, late 1960's.

Actress Natasha Gregson Wagner, Natalie Wood's daughter and one of the producers of What Remains Behind. (Photo from the Natalie Wood Instagram account.)

I’m a big fan of Natalie Wood, and I was very excited when the news came out that her daughter Natasha Gregson Wagner was producing a documentary about her mother. Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind, directed by Laurent Bouzereau, premiered on Tuesday night on HBO. For fans of Natalie Wood, it’s a must-see.

The fact that Natasha Gregson Wagner produced Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind means that we get to see an amazing array of behind the scenes photos and film footage. Both of Wood’s children—Natasha Gregson Wagner and Courtney Wagner—were interviewed, as well as both of Natalie’s husbands, Richard Gregson and Robert Wagner, her personal assistant Mart Crowley, the author of the groundbreaking 1968 play The Boys in the Band, two time co-star Robert Redford, and others. What Remains Behind is a real behind the scenes look at this iconic actress. 

What Natasha Gregson Wagner says in the trailer becomes the theme of the movie: “There’s been so much focus on how she died, that it’s overshadowed who she was as a person.” Of course, we all know how Natalie Wood died: she drowned off Catalina Island in 1981 at the age of 43. There has been an endless amount of speculation about the events of that night, and What Remains Behind addresses the mysterious circumstances around Natalie’s death during an emotional interview with Natasha and Robert Wagner. Personally, I think Natalie Wood’s death was a tragic accident, and that’s the point of view that What Remains Behind takes.

What Remains Behind is very well structured, although it isn’t strictly chronological. The film flows together very nicely. I was a little disappointed that Warren Beatty wasn’t interviewed for it, but it takes Beatty such a long time to decide to do anything that I’m not totally surprised.

It’s apparent that Natasha Gregson Wagner wants to change the narrative about her mother. Gregson Wagner wants her mother to be seen as a whole person, rather than just a tragic figure who died too young. Over the last 5 years or so, as Natasha has taken a more visible role in publicizing and shaping her mother’s legacy, I think she has changed the narrative about Natalie Wood’s life. Natasha has launched a fragrance, published a beautiful coffee table book, 2016’s Natalie Wood: Reflections on a Legendary Life, and now we have What Remains Behind, and Natasha’s memoir More Than Love, which was also released on Tuesday. What Natasha has done is given us a more vibrant picture of the woman who was Natalie Wood. Natasha has ensured that her mother will be remembered not only for being an amazing and beautiful actress, but also a vibrant woman who was a dedicated mother and a great friend to all who knew her.