Bullets or Ballots (1936)

Bullets or Ballots (1935) is a Warner Bros. corporate crime police detective gang infiltration classic from the pre-film noir years.

Starring the star of the show Edward G. Robinson, star of many Warner Bros. and other gangster films over three decades, perfectly paired with Humphrey Bogart, very much the rising star, in the first of five films the pair made together over the next twelve years.

That film noir charts multiple social, criminal, political, psychological trends in American society is one of its fascinations and why we're here.

Bullets or Ballots (1935) has something big to introduce to what became a staple in the film noir style—  the corporate crime angle. Corporate crime refers specifically to crimes committed by companies rather than individuals, and in the case of film noir and its critique refers to criminal enterprises that have become so large and successful, as many did during prohibition, that the organisations have taken on a corporate nature, sometimes becoming in fact legitimate corporations that are running criminal capers, swindles and operations.

Humphrey Bogart and Barton McLane in Bullets or Ballots (1936)

The bottom line however is that individuals in those corporations usually ultimate criminal responsibility, although by the 1950s, and the era when crime syndicates were so big they had politicians and police forces on side, or even on the payroll, the nature of corporate crime had changed again — changed up to something only recognisable as massive national corporations. 

Henry O'Neill as Ward Bryant with some Desk To Camera in Bullets or Ballots (1936)

Ward Bryant: My papers will continue their present policy of open attack on racketeers and the directors of organized crime who are the really dangerous enemies of society. His phone call is only further evidence that the racketeers have the American public pretty well whipped when a citizen has to sacrifice the safety of his family to ask for security and decency. These same racketeers laugh at your laws. They make a joke of your courts. They rule by the fear of their bullets. They must be smashed by the power of your ballots.

Post prohibition, with so many moderately talented criminals having at least built illegal business of moderate sizes, it made sense for some to upscale and make small crime gangs into enterprise level corporate crime.

Joan Blondell and Edward G. Robinson in Bullets or Ballots (1936)

Bullets or Ballots actually goes higher and that and there's a scene where we see the real corporate and respectable criminal controllers of the enterprise.

Barton McLane plays the leader of an extortion gang who is able to scale up into the millions, as the result of some forms of economy picking up in the 1930s. As said, it's interesting to see the actual social and capital robber barons, who reveal themselves after a quite brutal public murder, carried out with vicious glee by the talented Humphrey Bogart, here aged about 36.

 Barton McLane in Bullets or Ballots (1936)

The film is peppered with a variety of docu-style film making — there are large scale reconstructions of numbers and money counting rooms — "at the garage" as it is known in this picture. On a purely meta level, Bullets Or Ballots kicks classic film noir ass because it starts with the two criminals, boss Barton McLane and mad-ass wingman Humphrey Bogart, going to the cinema to watch crime documentary, a crime reportage they are actually featuring in.

Edward G. Robinson in Bullets or Ballots (1936)

This might even be meta enough to classify Bullets or Ballots as a journalism and media film noir — odd idea but in fact, the whole kick-off madness of Bullets Or Ballots is the immediate act of sudden raging violence, as Humphrey Bogart ( he plays 'Bugs' Fenner) is so deeply enraged by a media man solving crime that he cuts him down in public, lurks and strikes, guns the hell out of him, kills him dead in the street.

 Barton McLane and Humphrey Bogart in Bullets or Ballots (1936)

Film noir is ready to bring crime documentary to the 1940s and beyond, authenticated by the media and journalism at times, and at other times by the law enforcement authorities and the odd politician.

This brings us to the Hayes Code-induced brilliance of the public address style, adopted with gusto in Bullets or Ballots — it was a style that persisted into the later noir period, stopping in the early 1950s after one Phil Karlsen movie too many — I refer to The Phenix City Story (1955).

Edward G. Robinson causes a disturbance at a boxing match — Bullets or Ballots (1936)

We're talking about public political or law enforcement officials sitting at a desk, messaging directly in the form of suit and tied respectability, a notice on the illegality of what you are seeing — issuing a report on what law enforcement officials are doing about a situation — a threat that what you are watching might be spreading as a consequence of lack of vigilance — the dope from some cop guy being earnest about the feds' capacities — a senator or security politico, beaming in information, or some other earful. This is the essence of Desk To Camera. 

In Bullets Or Ballots it's William Kennedy, bringing the cinema goers a part by part expose of the rackets of America, the syndicate of crime, a series of short pictures presented to the American public as a warning, to arouse them against a growing national menace: the modern racketeer.

The rackets are racked up: 88 crime syndicates in cities across the States robbed the people of 15 million dollars. They extort money by adding one cent to every lettuce, and repeating this across industries; the mob are placing attractive expensive time-wasting games like pinball in wholesome milk bars across from schools, and threating youth derangement thereon, by muscling in and installing nickel games; by selling meat and if anyone refuses to sell, the meat gets doused in petroleum -- "What's the big idea?!"

Edward G. Robinson in Bullets or Ballots (1936)

The rackets scene ends with an expose of Barton McLane's genius racketeer Al Kruger, whose business appears to be jury-threatening, as he has been found not-guilty eleven times in a row of extortion and violence. Quite a talent, and as you will see in Bullets or Ballots, he runs his business well. It turns out too that according to William Kennedy his take is a 200 million dollar plunder in his city alone, presumably New York.

Suddenly enter Ward Bryant, creator of the William Kennedy films, who says he has been ordered to stop making his exposes -- or else! Bryant says he will never give up, claiming to be fighting for security and decency. Even decency has gone out of fashion but he tried.

Heavy lifting 'noir' effects by desk lamps in Proto-Noir Bullets and Ballots (1936)

Lee Morgan: Well, it's time you got wise to yourself. Around this town the only reason friends pat you on the back is to find an easy place to break it!

Johnny Blake: Yeah. You're a friend, aren't you?

Lee Morgan: Well, I guess you're dumb enough to think so.

What is maddening about this is that Bryant says that the racketeers must be smashed by the power of the public's ballots -- but he doesn't mention who to vote for. As noted, Bullets Or Ballots does offer a glimpse of elite power brokers but it doesn't say who they are, or how voting of all things could do anything to disrupt the structure of organised crime in New York, and across the states.

Barton McLane's character is also interesting in his soft spot for Edward G. Robinson's character. It's kind of a soft moral failing in a guy who is supposed to be tough as tigers. Luckily we have tougher than nails Humphrey Bogart nearby, who is brilliant in the way he is itching and seething to kill Edward G. Robinson — he has a lust on.

Disappointingly there is no election in Bullets Or Ballots. The phrase comes from immediately murdered media crime stopper Ward Bryant  (played by Henry O'Neill) creator of  the 'William Kennedy' crime series, and 'Bullets or Ballots' is his Desk to Camera plea.

As a subplot, Bullets or Ballots contains two women who are running the "numbers racket" in the Bronx and Harlem. They recall the two female leads of Imitation of Life (John M. Stahl, 1934), who are honest businesswomen:

The head businesswoman in both films is a single white woman who runs her small enterprise well and who is quietly getting rich.

Working for her is a black woman who used to be her servant — a servant who actually invented the business' product — the pancake recipe in Imitation of Life, the numbers racket in Bullets or Ballots. The woman is played by actress Louise Beavers in both films.

Louise Beavers in Bullets or Ballots (1936)

Nellie LaFleur: If this keeps up, you gonna be rich! Four thousand five hundred dollars yesterday, Miss Lee, and the game is spreadin' all over Harlem. The boys all around the pool halls are spending their money on the numbers instead of dice, and when a colored boy stops crap shootin' - that's somethin'!

Understood, perhaps, in both films is the idea that it would be hard for a black woman to run a business in the racist 1930's United States. Both women are close friends in both films and seem happy with the arrangement, which they seem to view pragmatically as one of the few that is possibly workable in a racist society.

Imitation of Life was one of the most prestigious films in the black community in the 1930's. It was considered to be anti-racist although it's not clear how well Bullets or Ballots was received on this issue. There is a significant difference in the product sold in so far is one is an honest business manufacturing pancake mix in Imitation of Life and so is admirable, although a crooked numbers racket as portrayed in Bullets or Ballots is less so.

The black enforcer working for the women who successfully intimidates a white crook is pretty unique and not a trope developed at all by later noir, which did plenty for every variety of cinema and form of entertainment, but did not advance civil rights very far, even with the excuses it may have had by being stalled for World War II, there is not a significant leap in film noir — certainly not in classic 1940s film noir — towards civil rights.

Humphrey Bogart and Barton McLane and Edward G. Robinson in Bullets or Ballots (1936)

Johnny Blake: Seven million people in this town and all of them looking for easy money. You just offer them 600-for-1, and this thing will spread like a four-alarm fire. And they won't be buying one number, they'll be picking four or five. But you want to control the winning number, you can pay off on racetrack bets and manipulate the totals. All it needs is organization. Get a million people in this town buying numbers and this one racket will clean up 300 million a year. Why, it's a cinch! It's easy!

There is at the same time a fun use of technology which film noir definitely did advance as it started thrilling with deeper fantasies in the coming decade. In Bullets or Ballots the bad guys wiretap the hero's room, to keep surveillance on him.

One could also argue that the figure of the spiral as a style anticipates film noir. he hero has a metal bed frame filled with spirals. We both see it, and shadows of it cast on the wall. Both add geometric patterns to the composition.

Also noir-like: there are lots of men in uniform in the world of the film. We see a mounted cop guiding traffic. The elevator operator is also in a snazzy uniform. He's played by Jerry Fletcher, a contract actor who endlessly played either bellboys or reporters in films of the era.

Humphrey Bogart in Bullets or Ballots (1936)

In Bullets of Ballots there is is also an exciting boxing scene, as in some of William Keighley's other thrillers, which helps capture the spirit of the age, and expresses public manliness and the collective behaviours of men in a way few other activities could.

There are a number of long lateral tracking shots that are screaming out for future forward motion, and the entirety of the late 1930s in cinematic history could be viewed through the notion of the camera that seeks to be static no more. So we pass along tables of men counting illegal money, and past a large outdoor area housing crooked dealers in produce, and towards the end, the hero has to walk a gauntlet of crooks who suspect him of being a cop, which is an exciting climactic scene to experience. 

This and a quick item of telephone noir as Joan Blondell attempts to access a phone number from an exchange only to be foiled by the operator and her massive big and friendly book of phone communications announcing — must be a confidential number. 

This is still a movie of speeding cars and revealing dresses, and shot three times but stoically and heroically moving step by step to a conclusion, Johnny Blake heads straight into the viper's nest where the big business tycoons of corporate criminal noir await him unsuspecting, ready to be cuffed and booked — because in the 1930s even the corporate criminals could be caught.

Death scenes were becoming a popular favourite too and Edward G. Robinson had by 1935 already delivered one of the most famous in all cinema. So to set this one up, refer to the earlier lines:

Crail - Ex Con: I see where they cut the bigshot detective down to size. Sure must be tough not to be able to kick the boys around anymore and make them tip their hats to ya.

Johnny Blake: Yeah, but they still do.

Crail - Ex Con: To a Bronx flatfoot?

Johnny Blake: [kicks and punches Crail to the ground] Yeah. And as long as I'm part of the force, they'll keep on tipping their hats. Remember it next time.

Johnny's slurred last words deliver a solid bolt of pathos to leave Bullets or Ballots (1935) — spoiler — it was the bullets that got him.

I like to think that when those mugs pass a policeman, they keep on tippin' their hat.

Walk the gauntlet of cops in Bullets or Ballots (1936)

The opening credits too have an exciting feel that only Warner Bros. could elicit in 1935, and as well as the strident thumping action music, there are titles cards that collapse like broken glass in a creative animation that reveals another one of the movie's players. It's a lot of fun for a film that is all but gone and forgotten. 

Taking some time off to watch the five feature films featuring both Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart:

• Bullets or Ballots
• Kid Galahad
• The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse
• Brother Orchid, and 
• Key Largo