DIRECTED BY
Jack Webb
WRITTEN BY
Richard L. Breen
STARRING
Jack Webb,
Janet Leigh,
Edmond O’Brien
The lone Technicolor offering of the festival has Jack Webb as a Prohibition-era bandleader who refuses to bend the knee to a local bootlegger. The actor maintains the same ironclad will that made him a star on Dragnet, but Pete Kelly’s Blues, which he also directed, ventures further into the darkness than the procedural franchise ever could. The gangland violence and speakeasy musical numbers are skillfully recreated, especially when they collide in the astonishing final act. Webb also assembles a Murderers’ Row of supporting talent from noir stalwarts Edmond O’Brien and Lee Marvin to vocal powerhouses Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald. Lee, in only her third onscreen appearance, scored a 1956 Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her performance as a boozy torch singer.
