Pete Kelly's Blues is a 1955 musical crime film based on the 1951 radio series. 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.