RKO Radio Pictures and Portrayal of Dick Tracy
By the mid-1940s he was a contract player for RKO Radio Pictures, and he was chosen to portray Chester Gould's comic-strip detective Dick Tracy in a pair of feature films: Dick Tracy and Dick Tracy vs. Cueball. RKO's earliest publicity photos posed Conway in profile, hoping to emulate Gould's square-jawed caricatures. Although this screen Tracy didn't resemble the print Tracy physically, Conway's dramatic interpretation was faithful; he gave the role an understated, businesslike quality totally in keeping with a police procedural. Morgan Conway is considered by many (including Dick Tracy writer Max Allan Collins) to be the best screen Dick Tracy.
Conway's films were successful in theaters, but exhibitors had grown accustomed to the screen's original Dick Tracy, actor Ralph Byrd. Byrd had played the role in four hit serials, and was a closer match physically to the comic character. Some exhibitors petitioned RKO to make more Tracy features, but with Byrd. RKO made the substitution, reassigning Conway to two other "B" features. The studio abandoned most of its "B" product in 1947 and Conway's contract was not renewed. In 1948 author Chester Gould proposed that RKO should continue the series, stipulating that Morgan Conway should play the lead, but RKO (then in organizational turmoil after the studio's sale to Howard Hughes) declined.
Read more about this topic: Morgan Conway
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