Robinson stars as pipe-smoking Johnny Blake, a New York City cop who's in charge of a squad that regularly puts the screws to fearful racketeers. Blake, a hot-head, generates unwanted publicity when he angrily punches the police commissioner (Joseph King) and gets kicked off the force. A powerful crime boss named Al Kruger (Barton MacLane, more or less playing Dutch Schulz) likes Blake's style, so he hires him in an attempt to gain fresh ideas about sidestepping the law.
Unfortunately, Kruger's vicious right-hand man, "Bugs" Fenner (Bogart), doesn't trust Blake. In fact, he'd kill him if he knew he could get away with it. Before it's all over, "Bugs" will indeed kill someone, and Blake will steal a lucrative numbers racket from Kruger's girlfriend, Lee Morgan (Joan Blondell). There's a macho battle for control, of course, but Blake, who's been harboring a major secret, will have the final word.
Keighley's knack with gangster material was arguably the key element of Bullets or Ballots success; he had previously directed Journal of a Crime (1934), G Men (1935), and Special Agent (1935). Keighley once stated that he aimed to "serve the great masses who actually do know good entertainment when they get it." A hefty $1,750 a week contract from Warner Bros. may have encouraged this populist stance. He didn't, however, bring Bullets or Ballots to the screen all by himself. Martin Mooney, a real-life crime reporter, wrote the original story, and he knew a thing or two about the Manhattan underworld. Seton I. Miller then adapted Mooney's work into a screenplay that featured the kind of dialogue and pacing that audiences had come to expect from the genre.
Late in his life, Robinson challenged film scholars to take note of a pattern that guides the movies he made with Bogart, and Bullets or Ballots is no exception. Both actors' characters would usually wind up dead by the end of the picture, but there was a distinct pecking order to how it happened: When Robinson was the bigger star, Bogie would get it first, leaving room for his rival to hang around a little longer before biting the dust. When Bogie became the bigger actor, the order was reversed. Who says movie-making isn't a science?
It should also be pointed out that, like many other Hollywood filmmakers, Keighley left his cushy position at the studio to bravely serve his country during World War II. His documentary on the Eighth Air Force Bomber Command, Target for Today, was the first film selected by the U.S. Archives for its library. He may not have been the most famous director of all time, but he was in the major league of studio craftsmen and well respected by his peers.
Directed by: William Keighley
Producer: Louis F. Edelman Screenplay: Seton I. Miller
Story: Martin Mooney Editing: Jack Killifer
Cinematography: Hal Mohr
Art Design: Carl Jules Weyl
Music: Herbert Stothart
Special Effects: Fred Jackman, Jr., and Warren Lynch
Cast: Edward G. Robinson (Johnny Blake), Humphrey Bogart ("Bugs" Fenner), Barton MacLane (Al Kruger), Joan Blondell (Lee Morgan), Frank McHugh (Herman McCloskey), Joe King (Captain Dan 'Mac' McLaren), Dick Purcell (Ed Driscoll).
BW-82m. Closed captioning.
by Paul Tatara
