Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for October 16, 2014

Good morning DT fans!

Karloff AND Peter Lorre! Shades of “Arsenic & Old Lace”!

I do know that the movie starred Lorre & Raymond Massey, but everyone said he looked like Karloff & that would set his character off!

Good morning guys!

Vista Bill would not go around shooting just anybody… especially not those two!

Could have been worse Gruesome,she might have said you looked liked Raymond Massey!;>)

Early to bed for me. Eye doctor tomorrow plus I’ve been having problems with my Verizon DSL connection (again). They are trying to “transition” me to FiOS… at a much higher price. Fortunately they only “strike” about every two months.

For those not familiar with the movie, Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome:

Please don’t tell me this is another Popeye Olive Oil diversion. Mom’s back in the hospital. It’s so sad to see her slipping away. I feel like a helpless 5 year old again but I still have faith God will touch her.

Have Faith, God will Touch…

Great reference to Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), in which Raymond Massey plays Jonathan Brewster. He is unhappy at being mistaken for Boris Karloff, chiding Dr. Einstein (Peter Lorre) for his ineptitude. Karloff would play the role of Jonathan Brewster in a television version of Arsenic and Old Lace on The Ford Theatre Hour in 1949. As has been noted, he played Gruesome in Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome (1947). Gruesome had a lot of nerve:.“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.”.More Halloween season fun from Team Tracy.

Good morning DT fans. So begins a new adventure with old villains.

Man, I have been enjoying the heck outa this comic strip since these guys took over.

Vista Bill may have fired blanks, but they were enough to scare off Gruesome {Boris Karloff), who was only trying to do a good deed: too bad the young lady panicked when he attempted to return her keys! Gruesome’s sidekick (played by Peter Lorre; name?) should be fun. What will follow, since Gruesome is so far guilty of nothing save being misunderstood?

Looks like a great Halloween story coming up.Wonder what Kadaver and Ricky are up to.

If they offer you a glass of elderbverry wine, politely decline. Or you may find yourself the next victim of Yellow Fever. Arsenic and Old Lace. Always enjoy tht show.

Was in it years ago with Shatner in the main role, Helen Hayes as one of the Brewster sisters and Peter Lupus as “Karloff”. Had a walk on as one of the policemen.

Gosh – can’t imagine why…

Trying to figure out the woman’s thought-process here: “A man is handing me my keys, and he looks like an actor who died 20 years before I was born—what was his name? Boris Karloff. OMG, Boris Karloff has come back from the dead! That’s the only explanation!” Of course, if she runs in the direction of the guys doing the shooting, she’s likely to scream “You look like an old lady with a mustache!” and “You look like a past-your-prime swinger with 1970s sideburns!”

FWIW, Boris Karloff originated the character of Jonathan Brewster when Arsenic and Old Lace premiered on Broadway in January 1941.

FYI… While Raymond Masey portrayed Jonathan Brewster in the movie. Karloff originated the role of The homocidal maniac in the stage version of “Arsenic and Old Lace” which preceded the flick.

Although he is best known for playing many sinister characters on screen, Karloff was known in real life as a very kind gentleman who gave generously, especially to children’s charities. Beginning in 1940, Karloff dressed up as Father Christmas every Christmas to hand out presents to physically disabled children in a Baltimore hospital

I think the new character looks considerably like Abe Vigoda!

ok, i had to check the pic online but joe did a GREAT job depicting gruesome in todays strip… tho he doesnt look very gruesome at all.. ither in the flick or the strip… odd…

well lets see we’ve already had cueball come and go in this strip, now we have gruesome… how about The Claw and Splitface?!?!

Both Raymond Massey and Boris Karloff have strong Canadian connections. Raymond was born here (brother was actually the Governor General at one time) and Boris Karloff worked in British Columbia both as a logger and an actor before “making it big” in Hollywood.

The little guy looks more like Peter Lorre. Next, Sidney Greenstreet?

Oh dear, Mr. Coffee. Profile much?

Karloff and Lorre were in the Raven. I’m wondering what the Lorre look a like will be called. Hopefully, not Moto or Ugarte.

I might regret saying this… but Gruesome, as drawn here, looks much like Abe Vigoda.

Needless to say, the other guy in the last panel resembles Peter Lorre.

In the movie Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome, Rudolph X-Ray was the name of Gruesome’s spectacled henchman..

I played the Karloff role in a community production. It was a little bit tough, because I was nauseous from some kind of bug, and the girl I was supposed to terrorize got so into her part she was practically throwing me around the stage. Still, it was a lot of fun.

According to Reader’s Digest, Basil Rathbone was finishing the run of a show in the same theater that was about to have “Arsenic and Old Lace,” and during one of his scenes, a bat flew down from the rafters. Rathbone stage whispered, “Not now, you fool! Next week!”

Anyway, here’s Karloff (with Eddie Albert in the Cary Grant spot), playing Jonathan Brewster in a half-hour radio version: https://archive.org/download/ScreenGuildTheater/Sgt_46-11-25_ep323_Arsenic_and_Old_Lace.mp3Karloff: All we need is one more, Doctor! Just ONE MORE![Door opens] Eddie Albert: Well, here I am!…

“NOTDAMAMA” (anybody remember what that was from? lol)

It’s been about a year since I watched Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome on dvd. As expected, not the greatest flick of all time and had many errors and humorous “oh good grief” moments, but like when passing an accident, it was hard to look away. I wouldn’t give it a rating, I’d rather just rate it as fun.

Karloff reprised the role on a 1962 Hallmark Hall of Fame production with Tony Randall as Mortimer (the Cary Grant role). Amazon is selling what is certainly a bootleg version, but the only way you are going to see it unless you have access top the UCLA Film Library. I did get it (before I knew it was a bootleg) and it’s not bad. It is a B&W kinescope and not perfect but still pretty good. The important thing is you get to see Karloff’s version of the character which is different from Massey’s. If you are a Karloff fan, this is a must have, even though it is a bootleg.

I think I’ve seen Arsenic and Old Lace twice, once at our high school and once at a theatre in Toronto where it had been running continuously for over a decade. I haven’t seen it in so long that I don’t remember many details of it. I may have to look for one of the filmed versions.

The movie “Arsenic and Old Lace” sat on the shelf for some time because the studio didn’t want to release a scary movie so close to Dec. 7, 1941.(It was almost the same thing we saw after 9/11, when footage of the Towers was clipped from movies because they were afraid it would upset viewers.)

@tsull“Notdamama” was from the sit-com “Dinosaurs” from Jim Henson’s company.The baby would look at the mother and say, “Mama.” And then he’d look at the father and say, “Notdamama.”The baby was played by Kevin Clash, the Muppeteer who’d later be Elmo on Sesame Street.

Arsenic and Old lace is one of my favorite old-time movies. I taped it on VHS a long time ago and have shared it with many family members from time to time. I have also seen it as a play twice in two local area Little Theaters. Our High School presented it as a Senior Play my Junior year in High School. Peter Lorre was great as Doctor Einstein in the movie.

Pequod77, et. al. – Actually, it’s better than that: Karloff played Brewster in the stage version of A&OL, then was unavailable for the film (and so they started the Karloff gag), and then (apparently; I hadn’t heard this part) did the TV version (did they keep the Karloff gags in? I’m betting so, Karloff probably adored them). And now does Gruesome here (after the movie, and I think that had a “you look like Boris Karloff” gag in it, too?) with a Lorre-esque sidekick? Too good!