Pete Kelly's Blues

Webb directs, produces, and stars in this interesting tale of jazz and gangsters in Prohibition-era Kansas City. Opening with the funeral of a cornet player, the film moves on to show how Webb's combo is threatened when gangster O'Brien decides to diversify his operations by extorting agent fees out of the musicians. Webb and his boys try to stand up to him, but when drummer Milner is killed, Webb goes for revenge, and after a shootout in a nightclub, O'Brien's gunman crashes through the ceiling onto the dance floor, taking the mirrored globe with him. Webb's direction is craftsmanlike and exciting in a blunt way, but his performance is stiff and hardly different f...