Bullets or Ballots (1936)
Bullets or Ballots on the IMDb
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Warner Brothers, Available individually or as part
of the Tough Guys Collection.
Edward G. Robinson, Joan Blondell, Barton MacLane,
Humphrey Bogart, Frank
McHugh. Directed by William Keighley.
This really should have been in the Warner's Gangsters Collection, but I guess you can only fit so many movies into a flimsy cardboard box. No surprises in Bullets or Ballots, but that doesn't mean that it's not entertaining. I suppose in 1936 you may not have expected Mac (the police captain played by Joe King) to be waiting in solitary for Blake (Robinson), but if not you probably hadn't seen too many movies. This was pretty clearly the plan from the moment Blake was fired by the police department.
Still fun stuff though, with Robinson playing tough even making old arrests tip their cap to him when they pass him on the street. Once he's been fired and flips over to a life of crime they don't need to tip their caps anymore, but you do see a little bit of Rico creep into Robinson's character when interacting with the other mobsters.
Bogart is great as usual as the gang's tough second in command, Fenner. He suspects Blake of working for the cops from the start but the gang's boss, Kruger (Barton MacLane) won't hear of it. The one time Kruger is set to buy Fenner's complaints, Blake wipes the idea from his mind by proposing to take over the numbers game run by Lee Morgan (Joan Blondell -- Louise Beavers, as Nellie, runs the Harlem portion of the racket and is involved in a couple of scenes as well).
Blondell has limited time on camera, but is still young and pretty as she usually is in this time-period plus a real sweet girl as well. Her Lee likes Robinson's Blake from the start, and vice-versa, but Blake is too busy with his career to get involved with a woman. When he's fired she offers him work running numbers, but Blake turns her down. Of course Bogie causes friction between the two when he blames Blake for taking over Lee's number racket and Lee, upon confronting him, tells Blake off.
Frank McHugh appears,
working for the Blondell character, as comic relief, but he's really not
needed
here. If Blondell's Lee had minimal camera time, well McHugh had half of
that at best.
The disc is loaded with extras including a couple that I already took in -- there's a featurette titled Gangster's: The Immigrant's Hero. This was about fifteen minutes long and featured clips from Bullets or Ballots along with Angels With Dirty Faces and The Petrified Forest, with clips from Nicholas Pileggi, Irwin Winkler, and Martin Scorsese, leading me to believe the featurette was made around the time of Goodfellas. I also watched Breakdowns of 1936, which is a blooper reel from several movies, mostly gangster flicks and features some favorite leading ladies exclaiming "Nuts!" and most of the leading men finishing off their flubs with a hearty "God Damn!" Breakdowns included several flubs and while none are hilarious they all made me giggle a bit, especially those featuring James Cagney, and one that somehow slipped in with one of my favorites, Warren William (familiar, but I'm not sharp enough to say exactly which film, sorry!).
Other extras which I haven't had the chance to watch yet are one of the Warners Night at the Movies specials that includes a newsreel, a musical short (George Hall and His Orchestra), a classic cartoon (I'm a Big Shot Now"), and trailers for Bullets or Ballots and The Charge of the Light Brigade. There's a commentary for the film by film historian Dana Polan, an audio-only bonus -- Radio Show with Robinson, Bogart and Mary Astor. Also How I Play Golf by Bobby Jones No. 10: Trouble Shots.
Plenty to keep you busy here whether you opt for the single disc or go for the whole box set (I started with this one, but the other five movies look just as loaded!).
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