Too many fans seem to be blown away

Absolutely Fantastic

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Blistering performances.

DICK TRACY MEETS GRUESOME is the last of the four cheap and cheerful Dick Tracy films made by RKO. Ralph Byrd returns to the role of the titular detective hero, this time battling against a creepy-looking villain who uses nerve gas to commit bank robberies. At an hour in length this is snappy, effective adventure filler, benefiting immensely from a villainous turn from the excellent Boris Karloff whose presence alone lifts it above the others in this series in terms of entertainment value.

It has the right idea of a comic strip carefully made into a movie, managing to be thorough, smooth and playful. And Karloff does bring something, that dark glamour and the quiet excitement, and that eerie charm, he recapitulates his previous career on the screen, and has the authority given by his experience; this player would of been great in gangster movies. The Tracy movies are neat and very enjoyable. In this one, you'll see an intriguing character actor playing X-ray, a henchman. Also, an actress offering a nice role as the missing scientist's assistant.In this movie franchise, the villains have been given pride of place; Tracy is a pawn in a teamwork, occasionally outsmarted by sly interlopes, and it needed a serviceable player, the choice for this movie was a fairly likable lead who gives a decent performance, just as required by the movie, he doesn't come across as bland (or, worse, … 'less engaging' …), but as stylized according to the franchise. The movies themselves have the look of adult comic strips, the wrongdoers are frightening, the action is thorough.The still frames of freezing transfixed characters have a suggestion: they resemble the comic strip panels. The _transfixion given by the gas bombs serves as a sign of the comic panel's idea.The villain who, forced to change sides within the underworld, becomes Karloff's sidekick, X-ray, was a striking character actor.There are in-jokes, I liked Karloff's rise after he recovered from the _transfixion given by the freezing gas-bomb, the allusion to body-snatching.The _cityscapes look great.It's RKO, who did awesome job, as here in conveying the feel of the comics, the movies really are for the comic strips' buffs. A nice role from the lady playing A. Tomic's assistant, a wonderful scene at the taxidermist, and a refreshing sidelining of the reporter.Tracy was a physical role, as generic as it gets, the generic copper, and the leading actor was serviceable.This series deserves being legendary.

After a good trio of RKO Val Lewton pictures, Karloff's career would kind of slide into less prestige B-movies and television. Here in "Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome", Karloff returns to the kind of heavies notable during his Warner Bros. or Universal Studios periods. He stars as a recently released crook who just so happens to literally stumble into a scientist's new experiment which renders humans "frozen" and helpless, with no movement. This new invention allows Karloff's Gruesome to initiate a series of bank robberies, using the chemical gas to subdue the clerks, security guards, bank employees, and clients in place mid movement while he and his associates rob joints in the city. Enter Dick Tracy (Ralph Byrd), on the case to help the police catch Gruesome and his gang, during his investigation the detective is led to a scientist named Dr. A. Tomic (Milton Parsons), which eventually puts him in the crosshairs of Gruesome. The movie includes Skelton Knaggs in goggle-eyed glasses assisting Karloff in an attempted capture of a comatose patient by disguising themselves as paramedics, Karloff shooting a potential female informant in cold blood as she walks down a quiet, empty street from the driver's seat of his car, Karloff and Tracy in a protracted shootout, Karloff collapsing in a street after stumbling upon the gas resulting in finding himself in a morgue (!), and Anne Gwyne (House of Frankenstein; she stars as Tracy's love interest) the only awake witness to an ongoing bank heist while everyone else is frozen by the gas. Dialogue heavy for sure, and the gas' effects are rather cheesy. Karloff handles the dastardly persona with kid gloves, bossing around those involved in his criminal activities, orchestrating the robberies and capable of the most heinous of acts if it means protecting himself from another trip to the slammer. Byrd is totally outshone by Karloff, and the less of him the better (which is kind of sad considering the movie is supposed to be his starring vehicle). Knaggs' soft voice and creepy eyes in those glasses (and diminutive size) is rather quite a contrast to Karloff's brutish antagonist. The cops are spinning their wheels for much of the running time, as the villains stay ahead of them. A set up in the hospital is what leads to Tracy getting the upper hand on the crooks. RKO seems to be imitating something you'd see from Warners in the 30s during the Cagney/Robinson/Bogie period of gangster shootouts…Karloff certainly wields a mean pistol. Another menace to add to Karloff's rogues gallery... The movie plays up an against-the-clock rush-time due to a pushy reporter who happens upon details of the case while Tracy and the cops are discussing everything at the station. As there is no honor among crooks, Karloff's team decide to try and turn on him, which is a big no-no.

A gang of criminals, which includes a piano player and an imposing former convict known as 'Gruesome', has found out about a scientist's secret formula for a gas that temporarily paralyzes anyone who breathes it. When Gruesome accidentally inhales some of the gas and passes out, the police think he is dead and take him to the morgue, where he later revives and escapes. This puzzling incident attracts the interest of Dick Tracy, and when the criminals later use the gas to rob a bank, Tracy realizes that he must devote his entire attention to stopping them. Never saw a Dick Tracy movie before and wow.This one with Boris Karloff is just amazing.Very tight and well directed.But it's Karloff who makes the film. Playing Gruesome, he's like no other Karloff you've seen in movies.