The Public Enemy (1931)

The Public Enemy (1931)

Despite a movie-opening disclaimer and what appears to be an honest effort to paint a criminal in a bad light (anti-hero Tom Powers freaks out during a fur heist and shoots at a stuffed bear resulting in the death of a partner in crime; he abuses the weaker sex, and dumps them when he gets tired of them; he kills a defenseless animal, etc.) James Cagney’s natural charisma inevitably defeats their purpose.

We like this guy, and we can’t help it.

A bad script call has his brother physically assault him and he, in what we might construe as cowardice except we do not, fails to strike back every single time. Instead of the planned audience response we read Cagney’s character non-action as self-assuredness: he doesn’t strike back because he doesn’t need to strike back.

I suppose this reaction is also inevitable. The Hollywood star system and casting process is not likely to ever choose an uncharismatic performer for a main role which is why audiences inevitably warm up to anti-heroes and villains from Alex DeLarge to Tony Soprano even when they aren’t supposed to.

Cagney even does a quick, inexplicable little dance, while walking around his car.

Speaking of The Sopranos, the HBO series borrowed the infamous Mae Clarke grapefruit scene barely disguising it as the moment when Uncle Junior confronts his loose-lipped comare and smashes a cream pie against her face. Nice quote, but much too obvious.

But back to The Public Enemy.

The movie tells the story of Tom (Cagney), an Irish American man, from his humble beginnings peddling beer and ripping off cheap watches as a kid, to the time of Prohibition when selling liquor really became profitable and he and his partner Matt Doyle finally hit it big, to their inevitable, meteoric downfall.

All along, his straight living-brother disapproves of Tom, but even him enlisting and coming back as a shellshocked war hero makes no difference; This guy is just a self-righteous stick-in-the-mud.

An accidental death (we are told,) creates a power void in the bootlegging/racketeering organization which leads to a gang-war with bloody, maybe unpredictable, but still quite shocking results which, odd for a Pre-Code film, finally deglamorizes criminal life with a last, horrific image.

Also with Jean Harlow, Edward Woods, and Joan Blondell.

A Classic.