Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome is an extremely pulpy crime action film from the late 40s. It finds the fearless and intrepid detective facing off against Gruesome(Boris Karloff) a powerful & cunning criminal who just got out of the slammer, and wants to carry out some mayhem using a body-freezing gas. Here from Cheezy Movies is a region-free bare-bones release of the film.

Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome ( aka Dick Tracy's Amazing Adventure, Dick Tracy Meets Karloff)  is from the year 1947, and was made/ produced by RKO  Studios. It was directed by Long Beach born John Rawlins. Between the years of 1932 & 1957, he helmed forty-two features- these went from comedy Lucky Ladies (1932), spooky crime comedy The Missing Guest (1938), stagecoach robbery-based western Overlaid Mail (1942), crime thriller Rouge River (1951), and exotic adventure drama Lost Lagoon (1957).
 
I’ll have to admit this is the first Dick Tracy film I’ve seen- I was of course aware of the character, and feel sure I’ve read the comic strip as a child. But pretty much as I expected this is extremely pulpy, at times a little silly, but entertaining enough as a one-watch film.
 
Playing Dick Tracy is Ralph Byrd, who had played the character on four occasions before on film- with his first appearance as the character back in 1937 with the self-titled Dick Tracy.  He also went on to play the character in an early 1950s US TV show too- appearing in forty-eight episodes.  And the brill creamed dark-haired actor plays the detective with campy charm.
 
In the film to hand, he’s trying to track down & capture Gruesome(Karloff)- a tall gangly, loosely suited, and toothpick-chewing criminal, who has recently been let out of the slammer. He and his gang- taking in the thickly glassed ‘n’ hunched Xray (Skelton Knaggs) & the suave piano-playing Melody(Tony Barrett)- have carried out a bank robbery where they use body-freezing nerve gas.
 
The film plays at one hour and five-minute mark, and I guess it felt a little bit like an extended Pulp TV episode. Karloff is of course great as the creepy crim, with his sinister stare, cunning not really caring about the rest of the gang attitude, and deadly hand chop. The film unfolds in a fairly predictable manner, and along the way we get lots of gangster plotting, in office banter from Tracy's office, a car chase, and a neat enough finale in the gang's hideout where they have a conveyor belt-fed furnace.
 

The region-free DVD features what looks like a TV archive scan of the film- and it’s not bad at all for what it is, with no great damage, warping, or issues be they visually or audial. As with all of  Cheezy Movies releases- this is a barebones release, with just a few trailers & nothing more.
 
As I’ve been a Karloff fan for a few years now, I do like to check out & see everything he’s been in as he was a talented & at times surprisingly versatile actor. In Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome he is playing one of his more typical characters- but he does it so well. The surrounding film is entertaining enough pulpy fun, and I wouldn’t be averse to checking out another Dick Tracy film.