Pete Kelly's Blues is a 1955 musical crime film based on the 1951 radio series of the same name. It was directed by and starred Jack Webb in the title role of a bandleader and musician. Janet Leigh is featured as party girl Ivy Conrad, and Edmond O'Brien as a gangster who applies pressure to Kelly. Peggy Lee portrays alcoholic jazz singer Rose Hopkins (a performance for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role). Ella Fitzgerald makes a cameo as singer Maggie Jackson. Lee Marvin, Martin Milner, and Jayne Mansfield also make early career appearances.

Much of the dialogue was written by writers who wrote the radio series Pat Novak for Hire (1946–1949), and the radio version of Pete Kelly's Blues (1951), both of which Webb starred in for a time before creating Dragnet.

Plot

Jazz cornetist Pete Kelly (Jack Webb) and his Big Seven are the house band at the 17 Club, a speakeasy in Kansas City in 1927 during Prohibition. Crime boss Fran McCarg (Edmond O'Brien) is moving in on the local music scene and wants a percentage of the band's meager earnings. When the band resists, Kelly decides to decline the strongarm and see what happens.

After the night's last set, Rudy, the club manager, orders Kelly and the band to the mansion of Ivy Conrad (Janet Leigh), a wealthy flapper with a reputation for hosting rowdy parties . Reluctantly, Kelly arrives at the party and leaves a message for McCarg to call him there. When the call comes through Kelly is busy fending off Ivy's advances; instead, it is intercepted by Kelly's drunk, hot-tempered drummer, Joey Firestone (Martin Milner), who abusively turns McCarg down. Kelly and his band are run off the road by unknown assailants as they drive back to town and Firestone is thrown out of the car over its hood.

The following night, Firestone roughs up Guy Bettenhauser, McCarg's top hired gun. Kelly desperately tries to patch things up, but to no avail. As the band finishes its last number, two gunmen burst through the front door of the club. Kelly tries to save Firestone by sending him out the back, but Firestone is shot to death in the alleyway. Tired and frustrated by his drummer's murder, and the subsequent departure of his long-time friend and clarinetist, Al (Lee Marvin), Kelly returns to his apartment to find Ivy asleep in his bed. Although he initially tries to throw her out, then resists her advances, the two strike up a relationship that turns with the passing months into an engagement.

Later, all the local band leaders meet secretly to decide how to respond to McCarg's pressure. When Kelly reaffirms that he will put up no resistance, the rest cave in. Detective George Tennel (Andy Devine), who is trying to take McCarg down, tries to enlist Kelly's help but is refused.

McCarg again tries to befriend Kelly, telling him that Bettenhauser acted alone in Firestone's murder. He also presses his moll, Rose Hopkins (Peggy Lee), a one-time talented songbird gone to the bottle, on the band. Her singing rapidly improves, but not her drinking. One night, soused, she cannot bring herself to overcome an unruly crowd and quits mid-song. An enraged McCarg chases her to her dressing room and beats her senseless, causing her to tumble down a flight of stairs in a heap. Kelly then turns to Tennel, who informs him that Bettenhauser has skipped town.

Al drops in to see Kelly. The two come to blows over Kelly's capitulations, but patch things up, and Al rejoins the band. In a burst of spine, Kelly tries to buy his way out, but McCarg intimidates him into continuing. Meanwhile, Ivy, feeling left out by Kelly's dedication to his music, decides to go her own way.

Kelly gets a message to meet someone who turns out to be Bettenhauser. He tells Kelly it was McCarg who ordered Firestone's death, but if Kelly can come up with $1,200 by daybreak, he will help him take down McCarg. Kelly agrees. Bettenhauser then tells Kelly he can find incriminating bank checks and papers in McCarg's office at the Everglade Ballroom.

Back at the club, Kelly arms himself, but is waylaid by a clueless Ivy, who wants a last dance with him. He insists he does not have the time. Kelly rifles a desk in McCarg's office, but before he can get what he needs the ballroom's riotous orchestrion begins to blare; Ivy is there, insisting on her dance. Kelly fretfully agrees, but soon finds himself surrounded by McCarg and two of his torpedoes. One of them is Bettenhauser, who had set him up.

A wild shootout ensues. Kelly barricades himself behind wooden tables. Bettenhauser climbs into the rafters to get a better angle, but gets plugged. McCarg's other man tries to shoot Kelly, but Kelly throws a chair at him, causing him to hit and mortally wound McCarg instead. Seeing this, the gunman gives up, saying he has nothing left to gain risking his life.

Back at the 17 Club, it is business as usual – the band lively playing, Ivy and Pete back together, and Rudy finding ways to cut more corners.

Cast

Jack Webb as Pete Kelly

Janet Leigh as Ivy Conrad

Edmond O'Brien as Fran McCarg

Peggy Lee as Rose Hopkins

Andy Devine as George Tenell

Lee Marvin as Al Gannaway

Ella Fitzgerald as Maggie Jackson

Martin Milner as Joey Firestone

Than Wyenn as Rudy Shulak

Herb Ellis as Bedido

John Dennis as Guy Bettenhauser

Jayne Mansfield as Cigarette Girl

Mort Marshall as Cootie Jacobs

Moe Schneider as Band member (Big 7)

George Van Eps as Guitarist (Big 7)

Ray Sherman as Band member (Big 7)

Matty Matlock as Band member (Big 7)

Eddie Miller as Band member (Big 7)

Nick Fatool as Drummer (Big 7)

Jud De Naut as Bassist (Big 7)

Martin Sam Milner (December 28, 1931 – September 6, 2015) was an American actor and radio host. He is best known for his performances on two television series: Route 66, which aired on CBS from 1960 to 1964, and Adam-12, which aired on NBC from 1968 to 1975.

Early years

Milner was born on December 28, 1931,[1] in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Mildred (née Martin), a Paramount Theater circuit dancer, and Sam Gordon Milner, who worked as a construction hand and later a film distributor.[2] Sam was a Polish-Jewish immigrant.[3] The family left Detroit when Milner was a young child, moved frequently, and settled in Seattle, Washington by the time he was nine. There he became involved in acting, first in school, and then in a children's theater group at the Cornish Playhouse.[4]

When Milner was a teenager, he moved with his family to Los Angeles where his parents hired an acting coach and later an agent for him.[5] Milner had his first screen test and began his film career with his debut in the Warner Bros. film Life with Father (1947). Less than two weeks after that film was completed in August 1946, Milner contracted polio.[6] He recovered within a year and had bit parts in two more films, then was graduated from North Hollywood High School in 1949. He immediately landed a minor role in the film Sands of Iwo Jima starring John Wayne.[5]

Career

Milner attended the University of Southern California where he studied theater.[7] He dropped out after a year in the fall of 1950 to concentrate on acting.[8] He made his first television appearance in 1950 as a guest star in episode 28, "Pay Dirt", of The Lone Ranger. The same year, he began a recurring role as Drexel Potter on the sitcom The Stu Erwin Show.

He had several more roles, both minor and major, in war films in the 1950s, including another John Wayne picture titled Operation Pacific (1951) and Mister Roberts (1955), with William Powell and Henry Fonda, James Cagney and Jack Lemmon. On the set of Halls of Montezuma (1950), he met and befriended actor Jack Webb, and he began intermittent work on Webb's radio series Dragnet.[9]

In 1952, Milner began a two-year stint in the United States Army. Assigned to Special Services at Fort Ord on California's Monterey Bay Peninsula, he directed training films[5][6][10] and was both an emcee and performer in skits for a touring unit created to entertain soldiers.[8] Milner was encouraged by fellow soldier and future actor David Janssen to pursue an acting career when his time in the Army ended. Janssen and Milner served at Fort Ord with fellow future actors Clint Eastwood and Richard Long.[11] While in the Army, Milner continued working for Jack Webb, playing Officer Bill Lockwood (briefly the partner of Sgt. Friday) and other characters on the Dragnet radio series on weekends. He also appeared on six episodes of Webb's Dragnet television series between 1952 and 1955.[6]

After his military service ended, Milner had a recurring role on The Life of Riley from 1953 to 1958. He also made guest appearances on numerous television shows, including episodes of The Bigelow Theatre, The Great Gildersleeve, TV Reader's Digest, Science Fiction Theatre, Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, NBC Matinee Theater, The West Point Story, 12 O'Clock High (Season 3, Episode 13, "Six Feet Under"), The Twilight Zone (episode: "Mirror Image"), Wagon Train and Rawhide.

Milner was under contract at Hecht-Lancaster, Burt Lancaster's production company.[5] He also acted in films, including The Long Gray Line (1955), Mister Roberts (1955), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), Sweet Smell of Success (1957), Marjorie Morningstar (1958), where he was able to draw on his Jewish roots playing the role of Wally Wronkin, Compulsion (1959), and 13 Ghosts (1960). He later costarred in Valley of the Dolls (1967), based on the best-selling novel by Jacqueline Susann.[