MikeMagi Reading the comments on "Paper Bullets" (aka "Gangs Inc.,) readers are disappointed that it didn't make more sense. But what did you expect? It's a PRC film and they were churned out in a few days. At least, it's a chance to see a very young Alan Ladd who had his cool charisma down pat before he became a star. On the other hand, if you're baffled by Joan Woodbury's rise from prison inmate to gangland queen, you're probably ahead of the writers whose job was to knock out something resembling a script, then go one to the next low budget thriller. As a return to the days when small neighborhood movie houses were shut out of the films from the major studios -- and forced to rely on Monogram and PRC -- it's a colorful bit of history. And as a movie, it really isn't that bad.

sol1218 ****SPOILERS**** Cheaply made and photographed with many of the night action scenes in it so lacking of any kind of decent lighting that their almost unwatchable the film "Paper Bullets" or its DVD released title "Crime,Inc" has the distinction of having Alan Ladd in it in one of his first more then just bit part roles. Ladd plays Jimmy Kelly an undercover NY cop impersonating mob kingpin Bill Dugan. That fact that Dugan is behind bars in NY's Tombs Detention Center doesn't seem to alert his gang whom Jimmy Kelly has infiltrated. That's until he comes out of hiding or police protection and testifies against his startled partners in crime in open court at the very end of the film. But it's Joan Woodbury as convicted hit & run driver Rita Adams who takes center stage here as the person who took the rap for the crime that her drunken boyfriend Harold DeWitt, Philip Trent, committed.Having her gangster dad Jim Adams, Kenneth Harlam, who's a stool pigeon for the police gunned down, Mafia style, right in front of her eyes when she was 12 Rita was brought up in an orphanage and when she reached adulthood had trouble getting a job because of her dad's criminal record. Making ends meet by robbing unsuspecting men while hitchhiking and occasionally knocking off banks and check cashing joints Rita decided to go straight by getting a job at a local night club, doing all kinds off odd jobs there, and hooking up with Harold DeWitt who's pop Clarence, Gorge Pembroke, is one of the most prominent lawyers in town.Told by her lawyer Bruce King, Dayant Washburn, that if she pleads guilty to Harol's hit & run his pop Clarence DeWitt will do all he can to get her off the hook. As it turned out she in fact has the book thrown at her and given a one to five year sentence in woman's prison instead. Now with nothing to lose after getting out of prison Rita makes it a point to shake down Clarence DeWitt for big bucks in blackmailing him in her revealing that his son Harold, who had since been killed in a car accident, was the person whom she took the rap for.****SPOILERS**** It's never quite brought out in the movie just how Rita got herself involved with the Dugan Mob that Clarence DeWitt was secretly a member of. It may well have been her involvement with DeWitt that sucked her into becoming a member of the Dugan Mob without her actually knowing about it. Despite getting again convicted along with her fellow mob members, including Clarence DeWitt, on 11 felony counts including racketeering jury and wiriness tampering as well as murder Rita did end up getting her wish come true. That's by having a park built her honor for young kids to spend their free time playing stick & hand ball among other games and not get themselves involved in the world of crime. And thus have them develop a healthy attitude towards life which Rita never did or had a chance to have. As for Alan Ladd he went on to bigger and better things or movie roles that established him as one of the top Hollywood actors in both the 1940's & 1950's.

T Y Nothing in this movie's title (um, either title), in the casting, in the script, or in the direction suggests this movie is about a criminal moll. The most accurate title for this would be 'Lady Gangster.' The audience for it? Who knows? My head hurt after trying to figure out who the protagonist was ...after trying to figure out where the plot was going ...and after trying to figure out why characters would do the insane things they do so naturally in this movie. And it has the perennial problem of most 'Chick Noirs': What is the genre? It's a girl's aspirational movie... It's a revenge picture... It's a political corruption movie... It's a melodrama... it's a romance... etc. It's all over the place.Not one line in the movie suggests how Rita (the eventual main character) transforms from gullible sap to mob Queenpin. Psychology? That's for suckers, pal. The only way this movie might have worked is if they had cast a pushy, contemptible, low-class, gum-smacking harlot in the lead role. Rita's behavior as written in the script? Predatory! Desperate! Rita's behavior as performed by Joan Woodbury? Sweetness and sunlight. Woodbury's Rita is waaaay too intelligent and polite (and cheerful, and well-adjusted) to be anywhere near this scenario.I'm with everyone else who asked more than once during this goofy movie, 'Wait... what did she just do?'. But I think I'm in the minority in that I began to find its utter incompetence more than a little funny, and sort of charming. Rita's sociopath/crimespree made me laugh out loud. It's completely out of left field. Just put on a wig, go out to your own street corner, and look for someone to hold up! Oh yeah, she's a criminal mastermind. Or when Rita's sister sings a cut-rate song in a nightclub; then sits down to some smoothy telling her "You'll never have to worry in life" ha ha ha.No two scenes in this movie are headed to the same destination. But it's still more entertaining than the inept noirs D.O.A., and 'The Man who Cheated Himself.' Obtuse, screwy, unintentionally funny. Jack LaRue looks quite a bit like Tony Shaloub.

JohnHowardReid This movie is still alive and kicking today thanks to the presence of Alan Ladd. This is good in one way because the movie has some interesting things to say, but bad in another because everyone who watches it expecting that tough-guy Ladd is going to hoop through his usual paces, is going to be mighty disappointed. Without fanfare or introduction, Ladd is suddenly introduced in the third reel. True, his role is a key one but it's small and likely to get lost in the shuffle. There are many key roles in former newspaperman Martin Mooney's ambivalent screenplay which hits out at all political alliances and quite ruthlessly denigrates Reform candidates. It's the lovely and extremely talented Joan Woodbury who ties the various strands of the wide-ranging story together. Unlike the usual Hollywood production, the plot actually proceeds in a series of jumps, much like the films later turned out by the French "New Wave", though easier to follow here, especially if you are aware that the film's original title was Paper Bullets. Nonetheless, some of the film's narrative and character switches are a little disconcerting, particularly in the role played by Jack LaRue who has wisely elected to act the part in a strangely non-committal way. One of Jack's best acting jobs ever, but no-one is likely to notice, alas!