Bullets or Ballots (1936)

Tough cop Johnny Blake (Edward G. Robinson) goes undercover with the mob run by Al Kruger (Barton MacLane). He clashes with Kruger's ambitious right-hand man Nick "Bugs" Fenner (Humphrey Bogart). One of the many villainous gangster parts Bogie had to play in the '30s. It might not have been that challenging for him but he was very good at it. It's great fun watching the diminutive Robinson slug wise guys right and left and they just have to take it. Joan Blondell plays Blake's friend who's crazy about him. But he has no room for dames, see? He's a man on a mission. Love these WB gangster flicks! Any gangster picture with Edward G. Robinson is tops in my book. Add Bogart, Blondell, MacLane, and Frank McHugh and you've got yourself a winner.

Due to the Hays Code restrictions, some gangster pics offered muddled character portraits, with a blurred line between good and bad guy that too often felt forced.This time, it's Edward G.'s turn and he's doing a solid job without being too enthusiastic about his part. No wonder, since the plot's rather lame and simple-minded.Bogie seems rather disinterested, too.Still, there's always a mild pleasure to be had from old school stuff like this.5 out of 10 hot lottery games

As crime melodramas go, this is a good one from Warner Bros. in the mid-'30s.And once again, EDWARD G. ROBINSON, HUMPHREY BOGART, JOAN BLONDELL and BARTON MacLANE do good jobs as part of the Warner stock company. It's really an assembly line melodrama about the numbers racket based on real life headlines from the '30s.It's effective in documenting the story of how a police detective (Robinson) fired from his job decides to infiltrate the mob by pretending to accept a job from the crime boss (MacLane). Humphrey Bogart is MacLane's trigger-happy partner, warned by MacLane not to shoot from the hip at anyone who crosses them. But soon it's MacLane himself who is victimized by the ambitious Bogart who wants the number one job for himself and resents any interference from Robinson.It all builds toward an exciting climax with a downbeat ending for Robinson. Surprisingly, it's directed at a fast pace by the very urbane and debonair William Keighley and not the studio's more intense Michael Curtiz whom we associate more with his ability to handle tough crime melodramas.

This turned out to be a decent '30s gangster movie, not a lot different from a few others I've seen where Humphrey Bogart plays the bad guy and is the main adversary of the hero. Several films had James Cagney up against him; here it was Edward G Robinson.Robinson plays policeman "Det. Johnny Blake," who goes underground, so to speak, by posing as a gang member to get the goods on them. (It's based on a real-life character.) Robinson, as usual, is very interesting to watch and is a tough guy BUT with a soft heart. In fact, he even feels bad about betraying the head crook because he has such principles of being a "straight shooter" that he doesn't feel right lying to anybody, even the gang leader "Al Krueger" (Barton MacLane). Bogart plays "Nick Fenner," Al's number-one guy and is more of the villain than his boss. Joan Blondell gets second billing but that's not right because she's at least fourth in the amount of screen time and lines. There really is no real love interest in this movie; it's strictly a crime story.When I first saw this movie, a little over a decade ago on VHS, I wasn't that impressed but last week, watching this on DVD, not only was the story better than I remembered but the picture was excellent. The blacks, whites and grays in here are beautiful. This was part of the "Tough Guys" DVD package and they did a wonderful job on the transfer.