In 1990, Warren Beatty made a Dick Tracy movie. But no one would let him make another one, and even tried to do a tv show without him. He got so mad he decided to find a loophole in his contract and get decades of petty revenge.
Every couple of decades, he makes a no-budget 20-some minute tv special where he complains to Leonard Maltin while wearing his old costume, and releases it unannounced in the middle of the night on TCM. This week, at 85 years old, he premiered his new one, called Dick Tracy Zooms In. He didn't even have to show up on set. However, he has gone to court to make sure that they legally count as sequels, and thus renew his rights to the character. He does this solely so that no one else can legally use the character for anything.
This new special will make the character his until 2027, when Dick Tracy goes into the public domain and anyone can use him for free.
This is art. This is some A+ Andy Kaufman-level trolling. I will never watch either of these specials, because the whole point is that they are unwatchable, low effort, and awful enough to be a middle finger to some bean counting whipper snapper who made Warren Beatty mad in the 90s. But I am so happy they exist. I'd rather know these bird flips by an old man taking a grudge to the grave are in the world than a Dick Tracy Disney+ show starring Chris Pratt.
Dorothy Lamour signs autographs for the George Hale chorus girls on June 21, 1939. Hale was a choreographer who worked on several Gershwin shows in the 1920s and continued to be active in the 1930s.
Born on this day: Anton LaVey (11 April 1930 – 29 October 1997), founder of The Church of Satan, musician, author of The Satanic Bible and the man who shamelessly melded Vegas-style show business and publicity stunts with devil worshiping. Here’s “The Black Pope” as he appeared in the 1969 Kenneth Anger short film Invocation of My Demon Brother. LaVey’s friendship with doomed sex kitten-gone-berserk Jayne Mansfield is explored in Mansfield 66/67, the delirious and lurid 2017 fever dream / documentary by Todd Hughes and P David Ebersole.