BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Haven Kaycee It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

utgard14 Tough gangster movie with Humphrey Bogart playing a racketeer putting the squeeze on truck drivers hauling produce. The unlikeliest of all truckers, George Brent, tries to fight the mob but eventually is forced to cooperate. Brent is an ill-fit for a working class Joe but he does an admirable job. Allen Jenkins is fun as Brent's friend Skeets. Walter Abel is OK as a crusading DA, inspired by Thomas Dewey, but doesn't seem like a match for Bogie. Between him and Brent, neither really powerhouse personas, it's no wonder Bogie walks away with the film. From the very first scene Bogart's character is fed up with failure and wants to make it to the top by any means necessary. It's like they took all the gangsters he's played up to this point and rolled them into one, giving them a final chance to make it big. And no matter how bad he was to others in this, I was pulling for him. The rest of the fine cast includes Gloria Dickson, Penny Singleton, Henry O'Neill, Fay Helm, and Joe Downing. Nice action and characters. If, like me, you're a sucker for seeing old cars and trucks in action in older films, you'll get your fill here. Definitely worth a look for fans of the WB crime dramas of the 1930s.

sol **SPOILERS** With his paid-off politicians and judges now swept into office big time mobster John "Czar" Martin, Humphrey Bogart, doubled his efforts to take over the trucker's union. It's the hard working and take no BS truckers that were still independent of Martin and his mob.Terrorizing most of the truckers into to joining his union, and kick back half their salaries to it, Martin hit a roadblock in tough and independent minded teamster Denny Jordan, George Brent. Denny saw Martain for the cheap and cowardly hoodlum that he really was and refused to be intimidated by him. That's until Denny lost his trucking business, by Martin's hoods putting the torch to it, and having his wife Nora, Gloria Dickson, end up with a sanitarium with a nervous breakdown because of it. With the governor appointed Special Persecutor Hugh Allison, Walter Able, looking to put Mattin and his organization out of business and behind bars Denny was the man he hoped, by turning evidence against Martin, to help him do it. As things turned out Danny in him not wanting to be a rat, or informer, even against a murderous thug like Martin decided to play it safe and not go before a Special Grand Jury and tell it of Martin's shake down and strong-arm activities. That in fact gave Martin a free hand to do anything he wanted to without fear of the law!What Martin wanted was to control the city's food supply with the truckers refusing to truck in any goods of the members of the food or produce industry who refuse to kick back to him. Not really caring about the truckers or their families but only using them for his own criminal purposes it became evident to former union chief Pop Wilson, Oscar O'Shea, that they'll end up without their jobs, and in many cases behind bars, after they finished doing Martin's bidding. By trying to stage a walkout on Martin and his corrupt union Pop ended up being pushed under the subway tracks and run over. It's then that the former union trucker and now tomato salesman Streets Wilson-no relations to Pop-played by Allen Jenkins picked up the ball that poor old Pop dropped. Streets tries to get the truckers to go against Martin's orders to boycott food distributors who refuse to play ball, that's in paying off, to him.***SPOILERS*** Streets courageous efforts to break Martin's vice-like grip on the truckers union did in the end cost him his life. But by him showing that being a free man, from Martin and his mobs control, was worth risking or,in Streets case, giving one's life for. It was both Pop's and Street's murders that finally got Denny and the truckers to get up off their behinds and take on the Martin Mob and finally put an end to the reign of fear and terror that he and hoods like himself used to get their way in both city and state government!

bkoganbing Though it might mean absolutely nothing to today's audience when you see the small mustached frame of Walter Abel who has been named a Special Prosecutor back in 1938 there was no doubt that Abel was a very thinly disguised portrayal of real life Special Prosecutor and newly elected District Attorney of New York County, Thomas E. Dewey. Among the many rackets that Dewey did investigate and prosecute was an effort to organize truckers and get a stranglehold on the produce markets of New York City. This film is taken from some very true and recent headlines back in the day.Warner Brothers loved Mr. Dewey and his prosecutorial exploits. A few years earlier Humphrey Bogart, the chief villain in this film, played a Dewey like prosecutor himself in Marked Woman which is based in part on how Dewey convicted Lucky Luciano via his stranglehold on houses of prostitution.The hero in Racketbusters is George Brent, stepping into a role that James Cagney probably turned down. He's a truckdriver who resists organization either by an honest union or the racketeers. And he's got ideas from the street about the social standing of stool pigeons.When things happen to his wife Gloria Dickson and his friend Oscar O'Shea, Brent himself becomes as big a racketbuster as Walter Abel.Allen Jenkins is a surprise here. Usually a mug whether a good guy or a bad guy, Jenkins steps up to the plate here as a man who went from the truckdriving game to the produce business. He understands the point of view of both sides and urges them to settle and kick out Bogart and his henchmen. Good job by Jenkins.No doubt in 1938 who this film was all about.

Brian Ellis If you want to see this movie because Humphrey Bogart is the star, save your time. He gets top billing because of what he became after this movie. In this movie he is in it enough to barely be called a supporting actor. George Brent is the real star, so all Brent fans should watch this (if there are any). Here we have an oddity - our hero prevents the mob from taking over the trucking industry! Of course we know what really happened. Atypical gangster ending for this movie; the length of the jail sentence is also stated! The ending came so quickly that one thinks that is was hastily cobbled together. One positive note is that Allen Jenkins actually plays a good guy for a change.