Dick Tracy’s G-Men (1939) is a 15-Chapter Republic movie serial based on the Dick Tracy comic strip by Chester Gould. It was directed by William Witney and John English.

This serial was the fifteenth of the sixty-six produced by Republic and the third Dick Tracy serial (there would be one more, Dick Tracy vs. Crime, Inc., in 1941). As with all four Dick Tracy serials, Ralph Byrd plays the lead. This time he faces Irving Pichel as the spy with a vendetta, Zarnoff. Future Academy Award winner Jennifer Jones co-stars as Gwen Andrews.

“G-Man” is a contemporary slang term for an agent of the FBI. In the comic strip, Dick Tracy is actually a detective in the police force of an unnamed Midwestern city resembling Chicago. This was changed for the serial.

Plot
International spy, Zarnoff, in the employ of “The Three Powers” (presumably a fictionalized reference to the Axis) is captured by Dick Tracy at the start of the serial, tried and sentenced to death. However, through the use of a rare drug embedded by his agents in the evening newspaper, he escapes from the gas chamber. His men pick up his “corpse” by ambushing the hearse and administering another counter-drug. He continues his espionage plans, while taking the opportunity of revenge on Tracy.

Cast
Ralph Byrd as Dick Tracy
Irving Pichel as Nicolas Zarnoff
Ted Pearson as Steve Lockwood
Phyllis Isley as Gwen Andrews.
Walter Miller as Robal, one of Zarnoff’s henchmen. This was Walter Miller’s last serial, he died shortly afterwards.
George Douglas as Sandoval, one of Zarnoff’s henchmen