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Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome (1947) More at IMDbPro »

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26 comments in total

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16 out of 17 people found the following comment useful :-
Fun, fast-paced B-movie with a fun cast, 31 May 2000
Author: (oliverkneale) from Denton, TX

While none of the four Dick Tracy films made by RKO in the 1940's are particularly extraordinary they're fun, the actors are charming, and the atmosphere of the films is nice and seedy. Plus, they often mixed in a little sci-fi and some comic strip style humor (such as characters named Dr. A. Tomic and I. M. Learned) in with the bargain basement film noir that manages to set the films somewhat apart from other crime-themed B-films of the time.

The final film in the series, Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome, is probably the best of the four, mostly due to the absolutely wonderful cast. Boris Karloff is dependably creepy and charismatic as the main villain. Minor 1940's B-movie icon, Ann Gwynne is the sexiest Tess Trueheart of the early films. The incomparably menacing, ghostly Skelton Knaggs plays X-Ray and, like he always did, steals every scene he's in. Everyone is great.

The story, concerning Karloff using a gas that puts people into temporary suspended animation to rob a bank, moves at a gallop and is delivered with humor and style. There's not a dull moment in the film and it's more than worth the vintage B-movie enthusiast's time.

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11 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
Get that cat out of here!, 20 July 2005

Author: Tom Willett (yonhope) from Central Midwest, USA

What is that cat doing in the bank, again?

Lex Barker, soon to become Tarzan is here in an ambulance driver role. He looks so good everyone forgets the plot. Meanwhile Gruesome gets away.

The chatty bank guard is good.

Boris Karloff wanted to be gruesomer than usual so he decided to copy Moe's hairstyle from the Three Stooges. It works. Karloff is excellent but you wouldn't want Gruesome for a piano bar date. The piano player/mobster never plays piano. They should have had Liberace in that role. It really would have worked.

The newspaper reporter could have tried for a spin-off.

I see this movie all the time at the 99 Cent Store. It is a great bargain. It is a good print of the film. The car chases are much better than today's chases. In the forties if a policeman saw a car driving away from somewhere, he could just shoot at it or shoot out the tires so it would crash into a taxidermy shop. Today they don't shoot at big crowds of people. Everyone in this movie has a gun.

All the sets are fun to imagine as being real. The hospital, the chemist's lab, the conveyor belt. The cars were beautiful back in the '30s and '40s. There is a lot to enjoy here. I saw this when I was a kid of about 8. It was great then, it is fun today.

Now get that cat out of the bank.

Tom Willett

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9 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
Karloff Excels in a Solid Dick Tracy Feature, 9 June 2005
Author: Snow Leopard from Ohio

Ralph Byrd is well-suited to the role of Dick Tracy, and this is a solid B-feature overall. But it is Boris Karloff, in the role of "Gruesome", who lifts the movie above the norm for its genre. He makes his character come vividly to life, and makes him into a believable and formidable foe for Tracy.

The story is enjoyable, if a bit on the wacky side, with a gang of criminals taking advantage of a gas that is supposed to cause temporary paralysis in anyone who breathes it. Tess and Pat also get their moments as they help Tracy track down the gang.

Karloff was an impressive and unusual talent, using his appearance, voice, and mannerisms in all kinds of ways, generally relying on the little things and on understated actions to create his character. He was certainly in a number of movies of far greater stature than this one, but in this, as in almost all of his roles, he is very interesting to watch, and he adds a great deal to the movie.

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7 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Gruesome is quite good, 9 April 2005

Author: ghannah from Australia

My first introduction to Dick Tracy was the cartoon series of the 1950s (60s?) and then later the Sunday comics. I saw the big screen Warren Beatty/ Madonna effort and was curious about these earlier efforts. I wasn't expecting much but was pleasantly surprised by this adaptation. Gruesome, played by Boris Karloff, looks as if he just stepped out of the Chester Gould strip (without the lavish makeup of the 1990s version) and several supporting characters also have the grotesque look that made the comic popular. The story revolves around a mysterious gas that can temporarily freeze people. While they're in suspended animation, the baddies can rob the bank (the perfect plan huh?) Anyway, it's up to Dick Tracy (Ralph Byrd) to solve the mystery and put an end to Gruesome's crime spree. It's all good fun with more plot than you'd expect and a solid amount of screen time to Karloff. Humour peppers the thrills to make it an enjoyable film.

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8 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Not to be overlooked, 19 May 2002
Author: jaykay-10

If we sometimes pay lip service to the notion that Boris Karloff was a fine actor, we are hard-pressed to offer examples - unless we mean his memorable gallery of monsters, mummies, mad scientists and assorted grotesques. In this unlikely film can be found one of the best performances of his career: that of a criminal, to be sure, but an ominous character who projects menace rather than horror. Karloff underplays the ruthless, single-minded social misfit whose manner is close enough to the norm to enable him to move among commonplace types without attracting undue attention, but is at the same time sufficiently glowering to intimidate even his henchmen. Among the latter is a perfectly contrasted ally in the person of Skelton Knaggs.

About the rest (apart from the tantalizing opening shot)...the less said, the better. But here is a B picture raised to the level of B+ by the solid work of a genuine professional.

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7 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
Boris Karloff Elevates This Dick Tracy Film, 5 April 2008

Author: ccthemovieman-1 from Lockport, NY, United States

This was my first look at one of these old Dick Tracy movies. I believe most of them were very short, like those, a little over an hour long, and pretty fast-moving. Apparently, this is the fourth and last one of the films. I read where many people think it's the best, so I started here....and wasn't disappointed. It was entertaining.

What I found, at least in this movie, was a mixture of crime and some humor. Here, too, was a little sci-fi thrown in as someone invented a gas that would freeze anyone near it for about 15 minutes. The crooks, of course, freeze everyone at the First National Bank, and then go in and rob it. (These were the days before video cameras.)

Early on, one of the characters mentions something about a creepy-looking guy, "someone like Boris Karloff." The guy WAS Boris Karloff. Later, a doctor who could help the police figure out this mystery gas goes by the name of "Dr. A. Tomic," physicist. Still later, there is a dramatic scene in a room with a big sign that reads, "Y. Stuffem, taxidermist." The film is full of these little corny things making it a crime-comedy type of story.

Yet, the bad guys are tough guys. Karloff is convincing as a big thug who would kill without remorse. To me, he really makes this movie and elevates the crime angle of it beautifully. He was one-of-a-kind: had the perfect look and voice for scary roles on film. Skelton Knaggs, as "X-ray," as a frightening face.

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4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
"Smart? He's weird. I tell 'ya, if I didn't know better I'd swear we were doing business with Boris Karloff.", 19 July 2006

Author: classicsoncall from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I got a great kick out of the line Dick Tracy's detective assistant Pat Patton (Lyle Latell) used referencing the star of the film. It's the second time I know of when Boris Karloff or one of his characters is called by name in a movie. In "Charlie Chan At The Opera", a stage manager responds to a ruckus in the theater by proclaiming - "This opera is going on tonight even if Frankenstein walks in!"

"Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome" is a wonderful take on the comic strip of the 1940's and '50's as I remember them. You always had those great play on word names for characters; here two of the principals are Dr. A. Tomic and his aide I.M. Learned, while Boris Karloff as Gruesome takes up with a gangster named Lee Thal. When Tracy investigates a taxidermy parlor later in the film, a sign reveals the name of the owner as Y. Stuffum. It's too bad audiences of today are too sophisticated to find the fun in this kind of punditry.

At the center of the story is a newly discovered gas formula that renders it's victims motionless, and comes in handy for Gruesome in pulling off a bank job. That scene brought to mind an episode of 'The Twilight Zone' which would have come out some years later; if memory serves that story also took place in a bank.

The plot didn't seem to hold together all too consistently as to the effectiveness of the gas formula. In the warehouse scene when Gruesome attempts to render Tracy motionless to capture him, the villain enters the area where he set off the gas capsule shortly after with no ill effect. The film's windup which follows had Tracy and Gruesome in a bit of a contrived cat and mouse game exchanging gunfire. The elevator hauling the villain off to the furnace had me a bit nervous but fortunately justice wasn't carried that far.

For his part, Ralph Byrd as Dick Tracy reminded me a little bit of actor Pat O'Brien. Tracy's girlfriend Tess Trueheart was played fetchingly by Anne Gwynne, and rounding out the bad guy cast were Skelton Knaggs as X-Ray and Tony Barrett as piano player Melody.

This is the first Dick Tracy film I've seen, and it had enough of the Chester Gould comic strip fun to suggest looking up some of the other titles. As a fan of the genre, I found it to compare favorably to other detective series of the era, notably Charlie Chan, Bulldog Drummond and Mr. Moto. For a decidedly different view of Boris Karloff, try catching him in any one of the five films he starred in portraying the Oriental Detective Mr. Wong.

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5 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Go X-Ray!!, 31 October 2001
Author: SkippyDevereaux from Parkersburg, West Virginia

This is a good little film and the first one that I saw Skelton Knaggs listed in the credits--he is a hoot to watch as X-Ray!! Something about this late actor is funny to watch, I don't know if it is his voice or his looks or what, but he is something else in this film.

But I found this film to be very enjoyable and fun to watch--in fact, all of the Dick Tracy films from the 1940's are good ones. Good character names all around--Lee Thal, A.Tomic-- wonder if they came from the comic strip or the screenwriters? Either way, I like the play on words. But, it is a good film and if you enjoy harmless fun, be sure and catch this one if it on television.!!

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5 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
'No useless killings!', 6 June 2005

Author: Nigel Edwards (zeppo-2) from United Kingdom

Boris Karloff as Gruesome adds a genuine feeling of menace to this addition of Dick Tracy potboilers. I liked the way his character refers to a henchman killing a cop as a 'useless killing'. Unlike the 'worthwhile killings' he employs when he decides to get rid of the people who stand in his way. A superb example of twisted criminal logic!

Once again, the character of Dick Tracy is dull and goes through the motions but gets his man in the end anyway. A disappointment is that Gruesome doesn't meet his fate in a more exciting and...well...gruesome fashion in keeping with the style of this series of films. Especially as Gruesome cold bloodliy shoots and kills a woman to stop her squealing to the cops! For just over a hour, these short films deliver some fast entertainment, there's flaws in the plots, the budgets are low but they are fun. And that's fair enough for me.

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3 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
KARLOFF IS REALLY GRUESOME!, 25 March 2003

Author: whpratt1 from United States

Yes, this was a B picture in the late 40's and actors still had to make a living and (Boris Karloff) as Gruesome was the best selection by director John Rawlins. It seems a mysterious gas which temporarily paralyzes people falls into the possession of a disreputable doctor, L.E. Thal(Edward Ashley). Realizing the great criminal opportunities of the strange gas, Gruesome, an ex-convict, enlists Thal's aid in a bank robbery. "Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome" is a thriller-diller only because Boris Karloff is the star performer. The picture has Karloff putting his victims in a huge furnace for safekeeping. Chester Gould, the creator of the comic-strip was proud of this picture in 1947.

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