Cinema Revisited: Police Bullets (1942)

Police Bullets

Directed by Jean Yarbrough. Starring Milburn Stone, John Archer, Warren Hymer, Joan Marsh, Tristam Coffin, Fern Emmett, Ann Evers, Charles Jordan, Pat Gleason, Gene O’Donnell, Charlie Hall, Billy Griffith, Richard Cramer, Irving Mitchell, Ben Taggart. Running Time: 61 minutes. Released September 25, 1942 by Monogram Pictures.

Police Bullets was made in the early 40s on a low budget at a poverty row studio with notable B-movie actors of the period and an excellent B-movie director. Films like this should be celebrated not overlooked or dismissed.

The story deals with a racketeer hiring a professor with a photographic memory to help with his operation by memorizing his books so he can destroy the physical evidence and avoid any investigation regarding tax evasion. While there isn’t a great deal of action, the stars fit comfortably in their roles, and there is an abundance of humor, mostly coming from Warren Hymer. Hymer specialized in playing tough-but-dumb mugs in movies such as this, and is a delight in scenes where he cheerfully announces he found a ball “and it bounces good too,” and his contrasting relationship with the intellectual professor (played by a young John Archer, years before his highlight performance in Raoul Walsh's White Heat with James Cagney).

Milburn Stone, noted mostly for playing Doc on TV’s “Gunsmoke,” played a does nicely as the head racketeer. Joan Marsh is more than an attractive presence as an undercover girl working for the police and infiltrating the operation. She is fast-talking and cunning with an intelligent pragmatism that adds more layers to her character. Tristam Coffin is fine as the crooked lawyer, while Ben Taggart offers a strong, sober presence as a detective who longs to put the racketeer behind bars once and for all. Laurel and Hardy nemesis Charlie Hall is a fun discovery in his supporting role as one of the racketeer’s thugs.

But this is really Warren Hymer’s movie. He steals every scene he’s in, adding a towering comic presence via his character’s slow-witted buffoonery. The professor reacts to his “atrocious” grammar, by stating “don’t you know that two negatives equal a positive?” whereupon Hymer replies “I’m positive!” With his bumbling manner, thick-tongued delivery, and pouting lower lip, Hymer handles the corny jokes in his dialog with perfect aplomb. In his attempt to express his friendship with the professor, who deals in mummified remains, Hymer says “Next time I go past the morgue, I’m bringing you a fresh one!"

Director Jean Yarbrough is probably best remembered for helming several Abbott and Costello and Bowery Boys comedies as those films continue to be shown. However, as with most directors of B-movies, Yarbrough was skilled enough to cross over several genres effectively. Check out his horror efforts The Devil Bat, King of the Zombies, and House of Horrors.

For years, movies like this were dismissed as second-feature fodder and directors like Yarbrough unstyled hacks. But that is a woefully inaccurate assessment. Yarbrough went from comedy shorts, to B features on poverty row, to A-list films at Universal before eventually settling into the new medium of television. Throughout that period his work showed creativity and skill. Police Bullets is tightly paced, works effectively within its limited budget parameters, and draws out excellent performances from its formidable cast of B-movie stalwarts.

Too often reviews of low budget movies try to qualify praised with lines like "hey, it's not the stuff of great cinema." I've been guilty of that myself, all too often. The truth is, these solidly entertaining films have a real significance to film history and are quite competently made. Police Bullets is a total delight at every level.