If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Although Alan Ladd has a supporting role in Paper Bullets and in fact gives the film its title, the star here is Joan Woodbury who plays a girl done wrong by the worthless guy she loves and then starts taking it out on a lot of people.In a brief prologue to the story Woodbury as a child sees her gangster father gunned down for being a stool pigeon. She then spends the rest of her childhood in an orphanage where she meets two of the men who would later play critical roles in her life.This woman learned not a thing from her tough upbringing however. She stupidly agrees to plead guilty to a vehicular homicide that her drunk date Philip Trent committed and she goes to prison for it. That gives her a far more cynical attitude and for the rest of the film, Woodbury is giving as good as she gets as she rises in the gangland underworld.Woodbury developed one interesting character, it's a pity that it is attached to a muddled story which drifts off on tangents. The two men in her life are aircraft designer John Bryant and gangster Jack LaRue who also were in that same orphanage. LaRue has a similarly interesting character, but he's also defeated by the script and horrible editing.As for Alan Ladd he's the only reason this PRC B feature is remembered. He also shows something of what his tightlipped screen persona would be like when he became a star. Ladd plays an undercover cop.As for the title Ladd tells one of his associates that the gangsters now use Paper Bullets to control a city which are votes. Now that's something today's audience can identify with.

What I liked best about this flick was the chance to see Joan Woodbury, who awe-struck me as one of the several beauties in the Charles Boyer classic "Algiers", in a leading role. She does well as Rita, an orphan who rises to make good as a lady crime boss. Her ascent to the top reminds me of Joan Crawford's characters, e.g. Mildred Pierce, who realize their ambitions by fierce determination and willpower. If you're looking for a film noir classic, better look elsewhere. At several points, it's difficult to know where this story is going. I first got the impression that it was going to encompass Rita's plot for revenge against the father and son who tricked her into taking the rap for a drunk driving death perpetrated by the playboy son. But payback time ended up being only a minor point, and a springboard to the somewhat confusing second part of the film, where Rita becomes increasingly involved in city corruption. Anyway, it's only 72 minutes, so a second viewing should clear up any haziness. My copy is from a Platinum box set called "Mobster Movies". The picture quality is good, but the soundtrack sucks, constantly skipping fragments of dialog. There are eight films in the $5.50 box, making each movie a fair 69 cents. Look for Anne Archer's father, John Archer, as Rita's childhood friend Bob. Alan Ladd doesn't get much screen time. It's definitely Joan Woodbury's picture.

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!

Flipping through the channels I was lucky enough to stumble upon the beginning of this movie. I must admit that it grabbed my attention almost immediately. I love older films and this is or should be considered a classic! One of the most wonderful rarities of this movie is that the main character was not only female but she was also a bad girl. I highly recommend this movie!