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Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome

1947

4/5

This is definitely the best of the 1940's Dick Tracy movies.

Boris Karloff does what he does best and acts large, imposing, and seriously creepy as the bank robber Gruesome, who is helped by a chemical gas stolen from Dr. A. Tomic (of course). The gas renders anyone completely immobile for a short time, with no memory afterwards of what took place. It seems Dr. Tomic himself had no intention of using it for nefarious purposes, but his assistant I. M. Learned (uh huh) is in on it, mainly because her suave English boyfriend L. E. Thal (yep) put her up to it. Unsurprisingly, Learned and Thal eventually get killed by Gruesome, but not before Gruesome and his piano playing sidekick Melody crash into a taxidermist office owned by Y. Stuffum (okay). Melody is killed in the crash, but Gruesome doesn't know that. Tracy is being hounded by reporter Dan for an exclusive story, but he doesn't want the news to obstruct the investigation. He asks for Dan to give him until 2 AM to find the robbers and then he can publish. He pulls a fast one on Dan, though. To lure Gruesome and his scientist buddy X-Ray out, he informs the radio news outlets that Melody is alive in police custody. Gruesome and X-Ray steal an ambulance and disguise themselves as doctors to sneak into the police station to get Melody out, which is exactly what Tracy expected them to do, I guess, because Tracy wraps himself in bandages to make them think he's Melody so he they'll take him to their hideout. Tracy almost gets fed into the incinerator, but ultimately prevails over Gruesome because he's Dick Tracy.

This one was very fun. Some fun detective work, great performances, something for Tess to do other than stand around waiting for Tracy, and a cop chasing a cat around a bank. Definitely recommended.