After escaped convict Gruesome seeks out his former partner in
crime, Melody, a
piano player at Hangman's Knot bar, he goes with
Melody to see the "Doctor," a crime boss, about participating in a
"big job." The Doctor works out of a plastics factory, and while
Gruesome is waiting in a laboratory to speak with him, he opens a
vial containing an asphyxiating gas. After inhaling the gas, the
enormous convict stumbles out of the factory and makes his way
back to Hangman's Knot.
There he succumbs to the gas's effects and
is picked up by policeman Pat Patton, who, believing that Gruesome
is drunk, drives
him to the police hospital. A doctor, however,
declares Gruesome dead and sends him to the morgue. Suspecting
foul play, Pat reports his findings to his boss, detective Dick
Tracy, who is talking with scientist Dr. A. Tomic about recent
threats on Tomic's life. A few minutes later, Gruesome wakes up in
the morgue, knocks out Pat, steals his gun and escapes.
Gruesome
then returns to the plastics factory and informs the Doctor's
assistant, X-Ray, that he is now the Doctor's partner. Shortly
after, the Doctor's gas is activated
in a bank, causing everyone
there, except Tracy's girl friend, Tess Trueheart (Anne Gwynne), to freeze in
mid-step. Gruesome and Melody walk in and steal $100,000 from
their paralyzed victims, but Tess, who was in a telephone booth
when the gas went off, is able to call Tracy. Before Tracy
arrives, however, Melody shoots and kills a policeman and escapes
with Gruesome and X-Ray.
The robbery attracts the attention of
crime reporter Dan Sterne, but Tracy, concerned that news of the
Doctor's gas will
cause costly bank runs, convinces him to
suppress the story until two o'clock that morning. Tracy then goes
to Dr. Tomic's office, where he learns from Tomic's assistant,
Irma M. Learned, that the doctor has vanished. Tracy questions a
nervous Irma about the experimental chemicals Tomic was working on
and insists on taking a sample from one of his bottles.
While
Tracy is having the chemical analyzed, Pat finds Melody and
Gruesome at Hangman's Knot, then pursues them as they flee and
causes them to crash their car. Melody is seriously injured, but
Gruesome
eludes capture. Later, Tracy brings all of the robbery
witnesses to view the hospitalized Melody, and one man, Dr. Lee E. Thal, makes a positive identification. Unknown to Tracy, however, Thal is actually the Doctor, who with Irma's help, stole Tomic's
gas and planted it in the bank.
After Irma meets secretly with Thal, her lover, she is visited by Tracy, who has since learned
that the sample he took was only water. Although Irma denies any
wrongdoing, Tracy suspects her and has Pat follow her as she
rushes off to meet Thal. Before Pat can intercept her, Gruesome
drives up and shoots
her. Tracy then learns that Melody has died,
but plants a radio report that he is alive and is going to talk.
As hoped, Gruesome, who has since murdered the double-crossing Thal at his factory and incinerated his body just as he had
incinerated Tomic, believes the story and sneaks into the hospital
with X-Ray.
Gruesome kidnaps the heavily bandaged Tracy from
Melody's bed and is about to incinerate him at the factory when
Tracy jumps him. After a fierce fight, Tracy finds Thal's gun and
shoots Gruesome, meeting his two o'clock deadline with only
minutes to spare.
|
Cast:
Boris Karloff
Ralph Bryd
Anne Gwynne ... Tess Trueheart
Edward Ashley
June Clayworth |
Production: Robertson
White- Writer
Story
by William H. Graffis and
Robert
E. Kent -
Director
Herman Schlom-
Producer
Frank Redman- Cinematographer
Elmo Williams- Editor |
through one hair-raising experience after another. And he always comes off
triumphant. In his latest, Tracy traces down a band of bank robbers.
This flick is a
chiller-diller. An odd-looking gang of bank looters using a mysterious
chemical in miniature bombs, gimmick being that said bombs temporarily paralyze
every person within close radius of same. Just why they fail to effect the
bank robbers themselves of Tracy and his Girl Friday, the lovely Anne Gwynne,
is not made clear. But this helps the yarn, since it enables the holdups
to tackle a bank, and have the guards and everybody else helpless even before
they come in the door.
familiar menacing scenes, pet stunt being to put his victims in a huge furnace
for safe keeping. To give it a meller, poetic justice twist story has
Karloff escaping a similar fiery death only by last second intervention by Tracy
(Ralph Byrd). Karloff, per usual, thefts every scene in which he
appears. Byrd is acceptable as Tracy, even to resemblance to the
square-jawed detective. 
