Jimmie Dale

Jimmy Dale, film (1917)

Jimmie Dale is a fictional character created by Frank L. Packard in 1914.

Fictional biography

A wealthy playboy by day, at night he puts on inconspicuous clothes and becomes The Gray Seal, who enters businesses or homes and cracks safes, always leaving a diamond shaped, gray paper "seal" behind to mark his conquest, but never taking anything. He was just doing it for "the sheer deviltry of it" at first, but when a woman known only as Tocsin catches him she blackmails him to war on certain crime organizations.^[1]

Appearances

Books

Dale's adventures first appeared in People's Magazine and then were collected into novels with the serializations generally appearing the year before the novel version was published.^[2]

• The Adventures of Jimmie Dale Toronto : Copp Clark 1917
• The further adventures of Jimmie Dale Toronto : Copp, Clark 1919
• Jimmie Dale and the phantom clue New York : A.L. Burt 1922
• Jimmie Dale and Blue Envelope Murder New York : Doubleday, Doran and Company 1930
• Jimmie Dale and the Missing Hour (1935)

In 2007, the first two books featuring Jimmie Dale/The Gray Seal were re-released as an e-book entitled Return of The Gray Seal.

Film serial

He also appeared in a movie serial, Jimmie Dale Alias the Gray Seal, in 1917.^[3]

Chapters titles were: 1. The Grey Seal 2. The Stolen Rubies 3. The Counterfeit Five 4. The Metzer Murder Mystery 5. A Fight for Honor 6. Below the Deadline 7. The Devil's Work 8. The Underdog 9. The Alibi 10. Two Crooks and a Knave 11. A Rogue's Defeat 12. The Man Higher Up 13. Good for Evil 14. A Sheep Among Wolves 15. The Tapped Wires 16. The Victory.^[4]

Legacy

Jimmie Dale/The Gray Seal is often credited with popularizing and evolving what would greatly influence later pulp and comic book heroes. The foppish playboy by-day-crimefighter-by-night routine had a precursor in The Scarlet Pimpernel, but it was Jimmie Dale that brought the idea into a contemporary setting and added the idea of a costume and mask for his secret identity, serving as a possible influence for characters like Zorro and The Shadow.

He also established the concept of a hero's secret hideout or lair, The Sanctuary, a precursor of the Batcave or the Fortress of Solitude.

See also

• List of film serials

References

1. "Gray Seal" in Jess Nevins ed. Pulp and Adventure Heroes of the Pre-War Years
2. "Gray Seal" in Jess Nevins ed. Pulp and Adventure Heroes of the Pre-War Years
3. List of Serials by serialsquadron.com
4. IMDB entry for "Jimmie Dale Alias the Gray Seal"

External links

• Jimmie Dale entry in the Encyclopedia of Pulp heroes
• Jimmie Dale, An Overview by David L. Vineyard
• Sony Reader e-book version of Return of The Gray Seal