LCShackley Most gangster movies I've seen focus on the bad guy (Cagney/Robinson) or perhaps on the cop or D.A. trying to bust the gangs.This movie, however, focuses on the people who are affected by the racketeers: the truckers who were forced into a crooked association run by Bogart. We see how the truckers, their families and businesses, are hurt by the protection rackets and bullying gangsters (who always wear nice hats and suits).The producers are careful not to make this an anti-union movie, even though the plot is about gang incursions into unions. It's really a propaganda film, trying to convince union members and other working men to stand up and testify against gang pressures. The acting is OK, and there's plenty of action (explosions, car wrecks, fist fights) to keep you interested.My favorite scenes involve gangsters using axes and creosote to destroy big crates of vegetables. Not quite your standard gangster fare!

sol **SPOILERS** With his paid-off politicians and judges now swept into office big time mobster John "Czar" Martin, Humphrey Bogart, doubled his efforts to take over the trucker's union. It's the hard working and take no BS truckers that were still independent of Martin and his mob.Terrorizing most of the truckers into to joining his union, and kick back half their salaries to it, Martin hit a roadblock in tough and independent minded teamster Denny Jordan, George Brent. Denny saw Martain for the cheap and cowardly hoodlum that he really was and refused to be intimidated by him. That's until Denny lost his trucking business, by Martin's hoods putting the torch to it, and having his wife Nora, Gloria Dickson, end up with a sanitarium with a nervous breakdown because of it. With the governor appointed Special Persecutor Hugh Allison, Walter Able, looking to put Mattin and his organization out of business and behind bars Denny was the man he hoped, by turning evidence against Martin, to help him do it. As things turned out Danny in him not wanting to be a rat, or informer, even against a murderous thug like Martin decided to play it safe and not go before a Special Grand Jury and tell it of Martin's shake down and strong-arm activities. That in fact gave Martin a free hand to do anything he wanted to without fear of the law!What Martin wanted was to control the city's food supply with the truckers refusing to truck in any goods of the members of the food or produce industry who refuse to kick back to him. Not really caring about the truckers or their families but only using them for his own criminal purposes it became evident to former union chief Pop Wilson, Oscar O'Shea, that they'll end up without their jobs, and in many cases behind bars, after they finished doing Martin's bidding. By trying to stage a walkout on Martin and his corrupt union Pop ended up being pushed under the subway tracks and run over. It's then that the former union trucker and now tomato salesman Streets Wilson-no relations to Pop-played by Allen Jenkins picked up the ball that poor old Pop dropped. Streets tries to get the truckers to go against Martin's orders to boycott food distributors who refuse to play ball, that's in paying off, to him.***SPOILERS*** Streets courageous efforts to break Martin's vice-like grip on the truckers union did in the end cost him his life. But by him showing that being a free man, from Martin and his mobs control, was worth risking or,in Streets case, giving one's life for. It was both Pop's and Street's murders that finally got Denny and the truckers to get up off their behinds and take on the Martin Mob and finally put an end to the reign of fear and terror that he and hoods like himself used to get their way in both city and state government!

MartinHafer I liked this film and I am sure part of this is because I really do love the Warner Brothers gangster films of the 1930s. Sure, they were very predictable, but the stock company of actors (Bogart, Cagney, Robinson and others) and writing have made these movies timeless--something that can still be enjoyed into the 21st century. And this film has many of these wonderful elements--including Bogart in his "pre-nice guy" part of his career, as the evil mob boss.However, this Warner formula is a little different because of some of the plot elements and George Brent is playing a different sort of character. Brent usually did not play in gangster films even though he was a Warner contract player, and the guy he plays in this film really isn't a villain or exactly a good guy either. In many ways I appreciated that he was more a "typical guy who rises above when the chips are down"(how's that for using the lingo?). This doesn't always work well, though, as Brent's character just isn't very consistent--ranging from a dull-witted hothead who thinks he can take on the mob single-handedly to a wimp who willingly serves the mob to save his own sorry skin. With a bit of a re-write, this character could have been great and elevated the movie to greatness. As is, he's very interesting but very flawed. Another flawed character is the Special Prosecutor. Again and again he begs and threatens but can't understand why truckers won't give evidence against the mobsters. However, EVERY TIME that anyone talks(except at the end), they are either dead or beaten almost to death and the Prosecutor's Office did NOTHING to help!!! Duh!!!As for the plot, it's not exactly the typical gangster film with hoods knocking each other off or selling bootleg hooch (like in THE ROARING TWENTIES or THE PUBLIC ENEMY) but is about mob control of the trucking industry. The steps by which they muscle into the union and the lengths they go to destroy the opposition were actually pretty interesting and timely. By being a little different, the film really kept my interest. A very good film, but certainly not a great one due to a few plot holes.

bkoganbing Though it might mean absolutely nothing to today's audience when you see the small mustached frame of Walter Abel who has been named a Special Prosecutor back in 1938 there was no doubt that Abel was a very thinly disguised portrayal of real life Special Prosecutor and newly elected District Attorney of New York County, Thomas E. Dewey. Among the many rackets that Dewey did investigate and prosecute was an effort to organize truckers and get a stranglehold on the produce markets of New York City. This film is taken from some very true and recent headlines back in the day.Warner Brothers loved Mr. Dewey and his prosecutorial exploits. A few years earlier Humphrey Bogart, the chief villain in this film, played a Dewey like prosecutor himself in Marked Woman which is based in part on how Dewey convicted Lucky Luciano via his stranglehold on houses of prostitution.The hero in Racketbusters is George Brent, stepping into a role that James Cagney probably turned down. He's a truckdriver who resists organization either by an honest union or the racketeers. And he's got ideas from the street about the social standing of stool pigeons.When things happen to his wife Gloria Dickson and his friend Oscar O'Shea, Brent himself becomes as big a racketbuster as Walter Abel.Allen Jenkins is a surprise here. Usually a mug whether a good guy or a bad guy, Jenkins steps up to the plate here as a man who went from the truckdriving game to the produce business. He understands the point of view of both sides and urges them to settle and kick out Bogart and his henchmen. Good job by Jenkins.No doubt in 1938 who this film was all about.