caseyt-48511 The Public Enemy is a classic of American Cinema and brought the rise of the gangster genre. Sound films were still new at the time and James Cagney became the first star to truly shine in the sound era. He pulls off his role so well and is believable throughout. The rise and fall of the American gangster is a storyline used many times over the years, but something about this particular one hits all the right notes.

SnoopyStyle It's 1909. Tom Powers and Matt Doyle are young delinquents. Tom's father is a strict cop. The boys join Putty Nose and his gang. As young men, Tom (James Cagney) and Matt (Edward Woods) join to steal from a fur warehouse. It doesn't go well and they kill a cop. Tom's straitlaced older brother Mike is going out with Matt's sister Molly. Mike tries to get Tom out of a life of crime. In 1920, the country passes Prohibition and Paddy Ryan takes the guys into bootlegging business. Mike returns home as a disturbed war hero and bitter at Tom for his beer and blood. Tom gets tired of his girlfriend Kitty (Mae Clarke) and shoves a grapefruit in her face. He gets a new girl Gwen Allen (Jean Harlow) who likes bad boys. After Matt marries Mamie, the guys run into Putty Nose and kill him for abandoning them after the fur warehouse. Tom tries to give money to his mother but Mike throws him out. Their gang gets into a gang war with a rival.It's a solid gangster movie from Warner Bros. What elevates it is James Cagney and the grapefruit scene. This is the start of Cagney's great career as a gangster tough guy. He just has the persona and the screen presence. And who knows why a scene like the grapefruit turns iconic but it is simply fantastic. It's lightening in a bottle and maybe unexplainable.

Scott LeBrun Legendary gangster picture for Warner Bros. was an appropriate follow-up to "Little Caesar", their first vehicle for Edward G. Robinson. Of course, this film did the same for the dynamic James Cagney, initially intended to have a supporting role. But Darryl F. Zanuck realized a powerful presence when he saw one, and knew Cagney was right for the juicy lead role. Filmed in potent matter of fact style by William A. Wellman, this has a number of scenes that have rightfully become favourites to classic cinema lovers. That grapefruit moment is certainly one that always comes to mind. With some excellent supporting players to help him out, Cagney makes this essential viewing for any fan of this genre.He plays Tom Powers, obviously destined from the start to be something of a bad boy. Played as a child by Frank Coghlan Jr., he begins as a street hustler until he attracts the attention of big players in the local mobs, such as Paddy Ryan (Robert Emmett O'Connor) and "Nails" Nathan (Leslie Fenton). With his equally seedy friend Matt Doyle (Edward Woods) in tow, he rises to greater prominence, taking no garbage from anybody - men and women alike - and often giving in to a hair-trigger temper.Throughout this bitterly dramatic story, Cagney will do such things as commit murder (although always offscreen) - against both man and animal - and spit beer in one unlucky bartenders' face. You could tell that this man was a star in the making. The women here will often be faced with his wrath, although the radiant Jean Harlow as Gwen will fare better than others. Beryl Mercer is the mother who suspects Tom is no saint but will accept his gifts of money, Donald Cook is the angry brother Mike who KNOWS he's no good, lovely Joan Blondell is Mamie, the woman who catches Matts' eye, and Murray Kinnell is the ultimately pathetic character "Putty Nose". An uncredited Mae Clarke has the distinction of appearing in THAT breakfast scene.Far from glorifying the life of this hoodlum, which was a criticism aimed at these early gangster films, "The Public Enemy" does have a chilling but not exactly implausible ending. It's just one of the factors that makes this such a fine viewing.Eight out of 10.

callumthompson1 A violence both gritty and fused to ignite the darker side of our imagination with black humour that still even though made back in 1931 still pervades the near nullified scruples of today's audience. This is The Public Enemy a landmark crime film directed by William "Wild Bill" Wellman who from the outset brings the streets and the times through social-realist montages showing a harsh environment which Tom Powers, Cagney's first notch on the eternal bedpost is born to.James Cagney dances across the screen with a presence that would turn early sound era acting into an art form. His character you could almost say is at first a victim of circumstance originally lead astray, but his fiendish nature soon rises to the fore in a poetically disturbing revenge scene where Tom Powers offs a childhood acquaintance who begs for his life to no avail, a scene where the most disturbing violence happens off screen in our minds.The Public Enemy which appears in an episode of The Sopranos is a stand- up film of any genre featuring all the now trademark elements of the gangster picture above all it's doomed anti-hero who in a climatic shoot out we see walking through the mean streets in the rain to violent redemption, worth mentioning that Cagney walks right into the camera his face filling the screen, a sequence which would also be I think replicated to a greater realised effect in Angels With Dirty Faces.