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.
"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.