One of my favorite things about this blog and Sundays is that I am trying to take the time to check out some classic cinema. Thanks to Timeless Classic Movies on Youtube, I have a chance to do that for Sunday At The Classics and we have a good one for you today. When I was a kid, Warren Beatty brought us his own version of
Dick Tracy which I remember loving as a kid. So, I wanted to check out a classic
Dick Tracy film and I present to you
Dick Tracy Vs Gruesome. Things are about to get a little complicated for Dick Tracy as a gang of criminals that features a piano player named Melody (Tony Barrett) and an very imposing ex-convict aptly named Gruesome (Boris Karloff) find out that a scientist has developed a nerve gas that freezes everyone temporarily in their place and they use it to rob banks. Now, Tracy and the rest of the police force have very limited amount of time to catch these guys before it's too late. The film stars Anne Gwynne (House Of Frankenstein) as Tess Trueheart, Edward Ashley (Pride And Prejudice) as Dr. L.E. Thal, June Clayworth (Live, Love, and Learn) as Dr. Irma M. Learned, Lyle Latell (Dick Tracy Vs Cueball) as Pat Patton, Skelton Knaggs (Captain Video, Master Of The Stratosphere) as X-Ray, Milton Parsons (The Wild Wild West) as Dr. A. Tomic, Ralph Byrd (Dick Tracy Vs Crime, Inc.) as Dick Tracy, and the film was directed by John Rawlins (Arabian Nights).
One
thing that I will say about the film is that I kind of wished that Dick Tracy
had a stronger presence in the film than he did. He was barely in the film to
the point that I thought the film should have been titled Gruesome Meets Dick Tracy. It was to the
point that we were seeing more of his partner Pat then we were of him until the
end of the film. Nonetheless, there is a lot to enjoy about this film besides
the funny names they came up with for their characters and that is the
masterful performance by Boris Karloff. Boris commanded the screen with a
presence that just demanded that you stopped everything you were doing to watch
him. Gruesome had to be one of the vilest and ruthless villains I can remember
as he cleans up all the loose ends and he makes it interesting as he continues
to outsmart the police. The acting in the film is really good as
everyone brings something to the table which made it enjoyable to watch. One
thing that I do wish wee got was more of those outrageous characters like Flattop
or even Pruneface would have been cool, but as I said we had Gruesome. If you're into 1930's styled police capers and what not then this is definitely one to check out or if you love Karloff as much as I do then check it out for sure. His performance alone in the film jumped the final grade to an B.
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