Paper Bullets

Paper bullets refers to ballots by voters during an election. In this case, there is a "reform" movement which promises to bring even more corruption to an already corrupt political system.

Alan Ladd plays an undercover cop who does not even appear in the film for the first twenty minutes. It is really just a supporting role. The real star of the film is Joan Woodbury, an orphan who makes a lot of bad choices in life early on, and then compounds them with even more bad choices as she becomes an adult.

John Archer is her goody-goody childhood friend who eventually leads her down the right path, and Jack La Rue as Mickey Roman is another childhood friend who offers her a chance at big money, but at a moral price. Her first sleazy boyfriend is her real downfall. This is a soap that is terribly uneven; it is good sometimes, and at other times, it is terrible; see for yourself.

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.

This obviously was a pretty low budget production, but the cast was pretty decent, the basic premise had promise, and something more could have been done with it, but the script wasn't that great- the plot is incoherent and seems almost random at times and the dialog is stilted and terrible.

Basically, a girl's father gets whacked by fellow gangsters, and later she becomes a robber, and wants to avenge his death, and then it goes into a mob protection racket involving corrupt politicians.

Alan Ladd gets top billing but he really plays a very minor role.

I have to say I found it mildly entertaining in its archaic B-grade hokiness but it really is shoddy and pathetic.

Above all, don't try to watch it for Alan Ladd, because if you try to pick up your handkerschief, you will miss him. So, forget it. But for the rest, this is certainly not a gritty, tough and brutal gangster film in the line of William Wellman's PUBLIC ENEMY, but a gentle and smooth crime film, though not being a comedy either. It is limit light hearted, with a fantastic female lead character that you will not forget. A so ambivalent character as I love. That's the Phil Rosen's film that I remind the most, among the batch I have already seen from this B and Z movies director. Not bad, I repeat, and keep focused on this wonderful actress, whom I don't know at all.

On tubi streaming, it's called gangs inc but imdb has this as paper bullets. Stars jack la rue, joan woodbury. When harold kills someone while driving drunk, rita agrees to take the blame, if harold will marry her. Lamest proposal ever! When rita gets out of prison, she has gone bad, and blackmails howard's family. For a while, she's king of the hill, but how long will that last? We were deep in the film code, so she can't get away with too much for too long! The plot is a bit complicated. And this was originally an obscure film, but seems to have been re-released and retitled in 1946, as alan ladd was now a much bigger star. Sound, picture, and editing are all pretty bad, but it's doubtful this one will ever be restored. About 45 minutes in, we find out what paper bullets are. Directed by phil rosen. It's just very okay. Interesting mostly because it has alan ladd, who had uncredited roles for most of the 1930s. Sadly, alan ladd died young at age fifty.