****SPOILERS*** Jack Webb riding high in his "Dragnet" TV series fans out here as a "Just the Music Mame" clarinet jazz musician Pete Kelly coupled as a crime fighter, like his Sgt. Joe Friday, in battling the mob headed by the whale like mobster Fran "Francis" McCarg, Edmond O'Brien. It's McCarg who's attempting to take control of Kelly's "Big Seven Band" working out of "Rudy's Speakeasy" in downtown Kansas City as well as all the other big bands in the Mid-West. That by McCarg forcing him to pay, 25% of the take, homage to him and his homeboys or else get his arms & legs broken. Acting at first like a tough cop instead of a sensitive clarinet player Kelly change his act when his drummer boy Joey Firestone, Martin Milner, who refuses to give into Mcarg's demands is gunned down by his boys one rainy evening leaving "Rudy's" to dry out after an all night binge of heavy boozing.
Kelly now giving into McCarg's demands has his entire band start to check out on him for better pastures, or gigs, in the east which includes his fellow clarinet player Al "Gunny" Gunnaway, Lee Marvin. It's Gunnaway who takes Kelly's lucky mouthpiece, in revenge for breaking up that band of his, for his clarinet that he once gave him as a present.
Living in limbo with no futures in the music or band business to speak of by being controlled by McCarg Kelly gets his big break when McCarg slips up by beating his girlfriend singer Rose Hopkins, Peggy Lee, almost into a coma. That by Rose, who was too drunk, being unable to belt out a song at the nightclub she was preforming in making him, who kept saying what a big hit she is, look ridicules.
***SPOILERS*** Kelly soon finds out that Rose now mentally damaged with the mind of a five year old has information about Firedtone's murder that can send McCarg, who ordered it, straight to the electric chair! The ending is something like a scene out of "Gunfight at the OK Corral" with Pete and his girlfriend ivy, Janet Leigh, who just came along for the ride confront McCarg and his henchmen in this empty ballroom for a final dance. It's interesting to see how Jack Webb can pull all this off going from a crime fighter in "Dragnet" to a jazz clarinet player in "Pete Kelly's Bules" and does a fairly good job in doing it. It's just that the public warn't ready to see Webb change horse in mid-stream which had him go back to playing Sgt. Joe Friday for the rest of his career until the early 1970's with only one film "-30-" in between!.
Kelly now giving into McCarg's demands has his entire band start to check out on him for better pastures, or gigs, in the east which includes his fellow clarinet player Al "Gunny" Gunnaway, Lee Marvin. It's Gunnaway who takes Kelly's lucky mouthpiece, in revenge for breaking up that band of his, for his clarinet that he once gave him as a present.
Living in limbo with no futures in the music or band business to speak of by being controlled by McCarg Kelly gets his big break when McCarg slips up by beating his girlfriend singer Rose Hopkins, Peggy Lee, almost into a coma. That by Rose, who was too drunk, being unable to belt out a song at the nightclub she was preforming in making him, who kept saying what a big hit she is, look ridicules.
***SPOILERS*** Kelly soon finds out that Rose now mentally damaged with the mind of a five year old has information about Firedtone's murder that can send McCarg, who ordered it, straight to the electric chair! The ending is something like a scene out of "Gunfight at the OK Corral" with Pete and his girlfriend ivy, Janet Leigh, who just came along for the ride confront McCarg and his henchmen in this empty ballroom for a final dance. It's interesting to see how Jack Webb can pull all this off going from a crime fighter in "Dragnet" to a jazz clarinet player in "Pete Kelly's Bules" and does a fairly good job in doing it. It's just that the public warn't ready to see Webb change horse in mid-stream which had him go back to playing Sgt. Joe Friday for the rest of his career until the early 1970's with only one film "-30-" in between!.