a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Blistering performances.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

The ridiculous title aside, this is an OK gangster film with more gab then guns, although there is an edge to the execution and display. The script is interesting in a behind the scenes kind of way that lets us in on the money machines and political corruption that is Warners trademark of message movies. The attraction here is the two stars and the modern fascination with these actors and their tough guy personas and they don't disappoint.This film is more sanitized and sterile then the best of the gangster films (as the newly defined Hays Code forced tricky gymnastic presentations of the seedy and the sultry). But the studio professionals were up to the task and a "new" type of underworld uncovering emerged on the screen. For better or worse.

***SPOILERS*** First of five movies that Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart were together in has Robinson as tough incorruptible and straight as an arrow NYC cop Johnny Blake infiltrate the mob in order to get the goods on who's behind it and paying off the local police and politicians to keep the mob immune from the law.Getting together with his boss police Captain Dan McLaren, Joe King, Blake has himself booted from the force for no other reasons then not having his tie straightened during the annual Saint Patrick's Day Parade. This ridicules charade on both Blake and Capt.McLaren's part is farther enhanced that during a boxing match at Madison Square Garden Blake belt's the police captain in front of mobsters Al Kruger and his #1 Man Bugs Ferner, Barton MacLane and Humphrey Bogart, in order to convince them that his firing by Capt.McLaren was in fact on the up and up.Impressed by Blake's actions which Capt. McLaren refused to press charges against him Kruger offers him the #2 spot, after Bugs Ferner,in him crime organization. Unknown to Kruger but not the smart and quick on his feet,in smelling a rat, Ferner Blake is planning to not only set him up but his bosses, a bunch of big Wall Street type, for the fall. That's in having the police headed by Capt. McLaren catching them red handed with the good's or money from their criminal enterprises like loan sharking bookie and the numbers rackets.Ferner who never trusted Blake and with good reason soon gets a bit ticked off with his boss Kruger in him being so naive and stupid in letting Blake in on his mob operations and offs, guns down, Kruger making it look like a rival mob boss did it. Blake who was promoted by Kruger as his #1 Man in now becoming the Main Man, after Kruger's murder, finally gets to see who's big or #1 boss or bosses, the Wall Street movers and shakers, and plans to set them up! That's before Ferner gets wind of what he's planning for them as well as himself! It's now a race against time in Blake getting his bosses to take the weekly numbers profits that he promised them before a mad as hell, in being double-crossed by Blake, Ferner gets to him first!***SPOILERS*** The what seemed like smart cookie Blake turns out to be as silly and self-destructive as his former and dead boss Kruger by for reasons known only to himself, and the movie script writers, has Ferner track him down at his secret hideout in downtown Manhattan to end up getting shot, as well as shooting Ferner in return, by him. With his girlfriend numbers racket gun moll Lee Morgan, Joan Blondell, giving him a lift in her car to Wall Street Blake brings back the bacon,illegal numbers money, to his bosses only to have them busted and thrown behind bars by Capt. McLane & his boys as soon as they laid their hands on it! As for Blake he'll never live to see what his heroic as well as brainless actions accomplished by dying from the wounds inflicted on him by Ferner that he, by not using his head, could have so easily avoided!

A solid, non-formulaic Warners gangster flick, "Bullets Or Ballots" showcases Edward G. Robinson in one of his most tough-nosed performances, as a cop-turned-gangster who won't be outmuscled, not even by Humphrey Bogart in one of HIS most tough-nosed roles."Finally got wise to you," Bogart's Bugs Fenner tells Robinson's Johnny Blake at one point. "You're through.""Oh no, I'm just starting," is Blake's cool reply. And he is."Bullets Or Ballots" has some problems, starting with that title. A reform-minded journalist makes a point early that "They rule by the fear of their bullets - they must be smashed by the power of your ballots." One might expect a movie where Robinson plays an honest alderman up against a crooked mayor, a la Jimmy Walker (the movie is set in New York City).It's not like that at all. Instead, the journalist is gunned down seven minutes in, and the rest of the film is set up when Blake is thrown off the force for "inefficiency". If he can't beat the mugs, he might as well join them. Rico he's not."Bullets Or Ballots" is a different kind of mob movie that way, and in other ways, too. Director William Keighley de-emphasizes gunplay in favor of sit-down confrontations. The script, by veteran Hollywood scripter Seton I. Miller and former crime reporter Martin Mooney, spends much time going over how criminal enterprises actually operate, with numbers games, pinball rackets, and money counters behind hidden walls. It even suggests a reality where the true mob masterminds are disguised as capitalist plutocrats. "The pillars of the community are the pillagers" is how Dana Polan puts it in his useful DVD commentary.Bugs is not the leader of the mob Blake winds up in; rather he's a hard-charging number-two to Barton MacLane's more civil-minded Al Kruger. The difference between Fenner and Kruger reflects a different take on gangster life, that bad guys aren't necessarily nasty men and in fact can be more dangerous and larcenous by eschewing obvious thuggery. Bogart does a great job playing against this as what Kruger calls "a strong-arm gangster" determined to prove Blake is still a cop working undercover. His scenes with both Robinson and MacLane are among the best in the movie.Robinson is the man, though, his Blake a character of total sureness and cool under pressure. Even when you think he may be less than on the level, you can't help admiring and rooting for Blake. "You don't miss much," Kruger asks him, and he doesn't.I wouldn't have missed the weak female-friendly subplot with Joan Blondell or lame comic relief bits with Frank McHugh as a character who can't remember names or add numbers. Joe King plays the new police boss who throws Blake off the force about as stiff as a pair of cement overshoes.But like Polan says, this film moves like lightning and asks some interesting questions about law enforcement in a free society. More important, it offers Robinson plenty of chances to throw his weight around. Nobody threw their weight around like him.

Edward G. Robinson stars as a tough detective, based on a real character, in "Bullets or Ballots," a 1936 film also starring Joan Blondell, Humphrey Bogart, Barton MacLane, and Frank McHugh.Robinson plays Johnny Blake, modeled after a real police officer, Johnny Broderick, who worked in New York City. As in the film, the character has a highly public firing so he can work with an organized crime group running illegal games.Bogart plays an ambitious gang member who intends to get rid of anyone in his way of taking over the organization - he starts with a newspaperman and goes from there.Warners made such great use of its character actors, using their versatility to great advantage. Cagney, Robinson, Bogart, all started out as villains but branched out into other kinds of roles.Strong performances by Robinson and Bogart - a good gangster flick.