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.

classicsoncall Right out of the box, this had the makings of a pretty good revenge flick, but that plot got slowly frittered away with off tangent events that didn't move the story forward satisfactorily. I saw the film under the reissue title "Gangs, Inc.", part of a 4 DVD/sixteen film 'Mobsters' movie set well worth it's ten dollar price tag. This one falls slightly below average against the rest of the ones in the collection, a shame because it could have been a lot better.I guess the main problem with the story is that even though Rita Adams (Joan Woodbury) ultimately gets her revenge against the crime syndicate that rubbed out her father, she wound up going the same route as the bad guys by sharing the same fate with a guilty verdict. The goon that she took the rap for in a fatal hit and run accident wound up written out of the story in an off screen auto accident, so there was no way for her to exact revenge on him directly. The job of infiltrating the crime combine fell to Alan Ladd's character Jimmy Kelly, but don't blink or you'll miss his connection to the story. Kelly's girlfriend Donna (Linda Ware) has a couple of singing numbers in the film, but other than being friends with Rita, there's no other reason for her being there as she plays no role in the outcome either.What you have here is a movie that on the surface looks like it's actually going somewhere but never arrives. The ending closes on a dedication sign for a playground, presumably on the grounds of the orphanage that took in the young Rita Adams left fatherless in the early part of the story. This viewer was left surmising that the sign was paid for with Rita's share of her ill gotten mob money.

davemed Fellow noir devotees, be not deceived, this is a stinker...poorly filmed, poorly acted and there is nothing...nothing here for the film buff looking for yet another solid B-movie from the goldmine of the 40's & 50's era of classics. I gave it a try based on the relatively high rating on IMDb. There's no accounting for taste, but I found nothing in this movie to recommend to other IMDb members. This is a classic example of having watched a movie and feeling like you have been cheated out of x number of minutes that it took the movie to get to its thankful demise. To have Alan Ladd on the cover of the DVD/tape is nearly fraud, he is on camera less than two minutes and has almost no dialogue! This isn't This Gun For HIre folks...it is a classic in the lousy sense of the studios cranking out fodder on no budget...We all search for the great ones... save your time on Gangs, Inc./Paper Bullets...it is lousy!

pmcenea My question is what was the worst element of this movie? Was it the acting? directing? script?. Maybe it was the waste of Alan Ladd and Jack LaRue. LaRue and, especially, Ladd are capable of bringing extreme sinisterness to a role. In this movie, it was hard to tell who the bad guy was. Granted, Ladd was playing an undercover good guy, but even in his good guy roles, he could be very chilling. So, the net result was a potentially good movie bereft of any feeling of conflict.