The Public Enemy

You can best describe THE PUBLIC ENEMY as the movie that became the prototype of many gangster films to come even decades later. Films like THE GODFATHER and series such as THE SOPRANOS do not hide their indebtedness to the movie.

When the studio Warner Bros. Pictures engaged William A. Wellman as a director of the promising mafia movie, the latter made his own promise: “I’ll bring you the toughest, most violent picture you ever did see.” A promise he kept.

Tom Powers and Matt Doyle are best childhood friends, who fell into a life of crime together. Tom’s brother and WWI veteran Mike and Matt’s sister Molly want them to get back on the right path, to no avail. Tom and Matt join the crew of gangster Paddy Ryan as bootlegging salesmen during the Prohibition era. Tom grows more and more ruthless and when a gang war breaks out between them and a rival gang, Tom decides to take matters into his own hands.

THE PUBLIC ENEMY became James Cagney’s breakthrough role and would typecast him as ‘tough guy’ with a deeper layer for years to come. Cagney convincingly portrayed the brutal character of Tom Powers and based his performance on Chicago gangster Dean O’Banion and his feud with Johnny Torrio and Al Capone.

The famous grapefruit scene – this one alone is worth a viewing – from the movie would make the film history books and would even be parodied a couple of decades later in Cagney’s penultimate movie ONE, TWO, THREE (Billy Wilder, 1961). THE PUBLIC ENEMY was a pre-Code movie, in which crime and sexuality was still being depicted freely. For example, Cagney’s character Tom is raped by Paddy Ryan’s girlfriend, something that would no longer be acceptable after the introduction of the Hays Code – a self-censorship of morality and virtue in Hollywood – in 1934. THE PUBLIC ENEMY is a gritty and realistic depiction of the oppressing atmosphere during the Great Depression in the US. With a final scene that is still one of the best endings in Hollywood history.