It was an endless party of dress-up and make-believe at northwest suburban Woodstock`s Dick Tracy Days celebration this week, but residents held back their finest for last.
From the mayor to the bank clerks, everyone had donned the comic-strip detective`s yellow fedora and raincoat or a criminal`s mask during the weeklong celebration, but they brought out the ball gowns and tuxedos Wednesday night for the town`s very own advance screening of Walt Disney`s new super-hyped Dick Tracy movie.
It was a big night for the little town of 13,500 that was the longtime home of cartoonist Chester Gould, who created the action-packed Tracy comic strip and drew it for half a century until his death in 1985.
”This is probably one of the biggest things this town has ever seen,”
said Mayor Jim Shoemaker, in his tux, as he greeted guests at the doorway of the 300-seat Woodstock Theater.
Some folks rolled up in white stretch limousines to get one of the nation`s first looks-for $100 a seat-at the movie.
The 300 ticket-holders were greeted by a red carpet and a welcoming committee of Flat Top, Wrinkles, The Brow and several other young men wearing masks of Tracy`s criminal enemies.
While the movie`s stars-Warren Beatty, Madonna, Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino-didn`t make it, the guests included Gould`s daughter, Jean O`Connell of Geneva; Dick Locher, a Tribune cartoonist who currently draws the strip; Max Collins of Iowa, who writes the plots; and a real-life Chicago police officer named Dick Tracy.
A Dick Tracy imposter in yellow garb signed autographs for kids among a crowd of 200 non-ticketholders who gathered around the theater to watch.
Disney officials sent one of the editors of the Dick Tracy comic books, Shel Dorf of San Diego, as a guest. ”I had the choice of going to Orlando for the world premiere (on Thursday) or coming here,” said Dorf. ”I told them that the heart of Dick Tracy is here in Woodstock.”
The 300 seats sold out quickly and the theater got a new lighted marquee and a paint job after Disney agreed in April to let Woodstock hold the screening.
With proceeds from the screening and a week`s worth of sales of T-shirts and other Tracy paraphernalia, organizers hope to open a Dick Tracy museum somewhere along the red brick streets of Woodstock`s Town Square.
The screening culminated a week of activities that included a Dick Tracy theme parade, a band concert, a fashion show, a murder mystery dinner and a luncheon with O`Connell as a guest speaker.
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Town merchants decorated stores on the square with life-size posters of the cartoon characters and a bank staged a mock robbery in the middle of an ordinary workday where a yellow-clad Tracy burst in and shot the robbers.