Alex da Silva Johnny Blake (Edward G Robinson) is kicked off the police force and hooks up with Al Kruger's (Barton MacLane) gangsters. However, he is actually working undercover and is gunning for Al's bosses. Along the way, he crosses swords with Fenner (Humphrey Bogart).....This film is easy entertainment but it must be stressed that it is a boy's film. The main female in the cast is Joan Blondell who plays "Lee Morgan" but she does not have a very big role. She runs a small racket in the "numbers" game which Al's gang takes over with Blake at the head. This provides a misunderstanding between Blake and Lee, who are friends. Lee feels betrayed and she unknowingly betrays his whereabouts to Fennel for a showdown at the end. The showdown is pretty lame. The two of them stumble across each other and start shooting. One shoots the other and the other shoots the other back. Pathetic! Edward G Robinson is OK in the lead. He is likable but does not make enough of an emotional connection for us to really care about what happens to him at the end. It is also laughable when he punches one of the tough gangsters to the ground surrounded in a room by several other tough gangsters. All much taller than him. I don't think so! He would have been battered. On the other hand, Humphrey Bogart is excellent as a hard man and he wins the acting honours in this film. Frank McHugh has a small role as "Herman" in a one of those unfunny comedy roles and he is a complete tool.As regards the plot, it is all a load of nonsense. NO WAY would Al give Blake such a powerful position in his organization. There is also NO WAY that the other gangsters would have tolerated this ex-policeman, especially as the cartels start to get broken up soon after his arrival. How obvious! The film is OK to watch and passes the time and the character that sticks in the mind is Humphrey Bogart. I'm not sure if the film is worth keeping onto, though.

MARIO GAUCI This is one of the few gangster classics from that genre's golden era and featuring its iconic stars which was never available in my neck of the woods until it surfaced on DVD. It was also the first of five films teaming (or rather pitting one against the other) Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart; the former was the real star and he was already starting to branch out from gangster roles – the latter was still a supporting actor (having just had his big break with THE PETRIFIED FOREST [1936]) and five more years would pass till he achieved his long-deserved stardom (nevertheless, in spite of the lack of range offered by the scripts for these type of roles, Bogie always made an impression at it).By this time, the Hays Code had come down on Hollywood for their glorification of the gangster; Warners had pulled a clever switch with "G" MEN (1935), where these same crimes were presented from the viewpoint of law enforcement officers (that film had also been helmed by this film's director, William Keighley, and starred another of the great genre actors, James Cagney). In this case, the narrative allowed Robinson as an undercover cop to still be involved in the criminal activity, and rise through the ranks as always, without taking active part in them: however, censorship of the time still dictated that his character had to die at the end (unless it was a way of showing the risk inherent in such police work). Interestingly, Keighley would return to a similar situation – this time revolving around the F.B.I. – many years later with the noir THE STREET WITH NO NAME (1948), which I've just watched as part of my ongoing tribute to Richard Widmark; having mentioned the noir, while I admire the vitality and raw power of the gangster films, their limited plot lines rather prevents them from having the same pull of the fatalistic thrillers often involving tortuous plots and where the protagonists – apart from the dark city streets – could be as much a private detective as the next man, but always gullible and at the mercy of a femme fatale... To go back to BULLETS OR BALLOTS, the film is typically fast-moving – it's not just the action that crackles but the dialogue as well – and, while some of the edge of the very earliest gangster pictures, has been lost by way of repetition (and the standards of the Code), it's still a satisfactory and highly entertaining entry. For the record, two of the very best efforts in this influential genre were still a couple of years away – namely ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES (1938) and THE ROARING TWENTIES (1939), both with Cagney as an anti-hero and Bogie ever the irredeemable and duplicitous mobster. Here, alongside the two stars, are Joan Blondell as Robinson's on-off girl on whom Bogart has his eyes as well (interestingly, she's got her own particular racket going!), Barton MacLane as the big boss whom Bogart is forever trying to oust (again, a role he would often play) and Frank McHugh providing the comic relief (ditto).

Craig Newman Today, when we see actors like Robert DeNiro or Al Pacino jump from playing a bad guy to a good guy, we hardly bat an eye. After all, it IS Robert DeNiro or Al Pacino. But in those olden days of Hollywood, if you were a bad guy, you would always play the bad guy. That's one of the reasons why "Bullets Or Ballots" is so incredible. It features Edward G. Robinson, famous for playing gangsters in films like "Little Caesar", playing a good guy. And that's just one of the interesting, not to mention entertaining, aspects of this movie.When this movie was released in 1936, America was going through a social shift. During the Prohibition Era of the 1920's, gangsters were romanticized as urban "Robin Hoods" (Personified in F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby") because they sold beer to a thirsty public who did not support the Prohibition laws. But after the bloody rampage of the Roaring 20's gang wars of men like Al Capone, "Dutch" Schultz, and The Purple Gang, and the Depression Era Bank Robbing sprees of John Dillinger, "Babyface" Nelson, and "Machine Gun" Kelly, America had had enough of the gangsters. Sensing the social shift, Warner Brothers stopped making movies about the gangster (more or less) and started making movies celebrating the cops and federal agents who battled the mob. The first of these films was "G-Men" starring James Cagney as an FBI agent in 1935. "Bullets Or Ballots" came next.In the film, Edward G. Robinson portrays Johnny Blake, and Eliot Ness-like gang buster in the NYPD. Blake is such a good cop that not only is he admired by his fellow cops but he's also respected by the mob. While that may seem a little corny, it turns out to be very poignant in the end. When a wave of reform sweeps the city with the appointment of a new, honest, grand jury, and an honest police chief, Blake finds himself kicked off the force on a trumped up charge of "derilection of duty". Blake is then offered a job as the "chief of security" by New York mobster Al Kruger (Barton MacLane in another tough guy roll). Kruger wants Blake to use his police know-how to make sure the rackets are running smoothly and cannot be dismantled by the new reform movement. Because of that afore mentioned respect Kruger and the other mobsters have for Blake, the former cop moves into the organization with ease, despite being kept under the watchful eye of "Bugs" Fenner (a pre-fame Humphrey Bogart in a cookie-cutter thug roll he would be stuck playing before his breakthrough in "Casablanca"), a gangster who is still suspicious of Blake. Johnny's new position also puts him at odds with many of his former friends in the police department as well as his girlfriend, Lee (Joan Blondell) who runs an independent gambling racket out of her nightclub. But little do they know, and "Bugs" Fenner rightfully suspects, Johnny Blake has not turned bad...he's still working for the police as an undercover officer! In a clever ruse developed by Blake and the new police chief, Blake has faked getting thrown off the force in order to infiltrate the crime syndicate and collapse it from within.This is an exciting movie with the right balance of twists, turns, drama, action, and even humor (With the inclusion gangland comic relief Frank McHugh), making it an movie sadly over looked when mentioning the great gangster pictures of the era. The only part of this film I didn't like was the cringe-worthy portrayal of African Americans in this film. In the movie, there is a woman named Nellie who runs the gambling racket for Lee out of her club. She's of the grossly stereotypical "Yessah, Miss Lee" ignorant blacks. Unfortunately, this type of character was considered "acceptable" by film making standards in those days and is my only reason for not giving one of my all-time favorite gangster movies a full 10 stars.

MartinHafer Okay, I'll admit that MOST of the Warner Brothers films of the 1930s starring actors like Cagney, Bogart and Edward G. Robinson were predictable and formulaic. But, they were also very entertaining and the public loved them. I happen to be a real fan of the films but know that they aren't exactly "high art" or always 100% believable! Well, this is such a film, as you really need to suspend disbelief and just sit back and enjoy--and boy, did I enjoy this dandy film.Robinson played a tough as nails detective who used to be a force to be reckoned with in the police department, but in recent years instead of smashing organized crime, he's been reassigned to more mundane activities. And, he's got REAL ATTITUDE, as when hoods see him on the street, he's likely to slug them if they don't show him "proper respect". At the same time, the grand jury is outraged by the proliferation of organized crime, so they appoint a new Police Commissioner. However, unexpectedly, this new Commissioner unexpectedly fires Robinson instead of having him return to his old mob-fighting ways! Now at this point, considering who Robinson's character was, it seemed obvious that his being fired was NOT "strictly on the level". Where this goes and how the movie wraps everything up, I'll leave to you.The acting is fun and exactly what you'd expect from an old gangster picture. The combination of Robinson, Barton MacLane and Bogart as the leads is exceptional and is sure to please, though I must admit that MacLane's character, at times, seems a bit stupid and gullible--he wasn't the best written character in the film.