History has it that "The Public Enemy" is what made Cagney a star, and I can see why. He's got charisma, a real mean streak, and he's easy to envision as an iconic gangster. This is your straightforward rise-and-fall movie, a street rat's quest for the American dream (he's not all that far from Tony Montana); and it still has some heft, even if we've seen this story time and again.There's a saddening twist that comes in the final moments. And you can see it coming, but the execution - just one particular shot - has a startling impact.There are pacing issues, but those final scenes are entirely worth it. And I love that the movie is bookended by anti-crime PSAs. 7/10

The gangster film was already big business when this movie came out in 1931, but it got a needed dose of star power with the arrival of James Cagney.Cagney plays Tom Powers, a tough kid from a middle-class Chicago family who sees the underworld as his ticket to the big money and respect. Prohibition helps reward his sinister urge. When his brother points up the error of his ways, Powers sneers as only Cagney could:"I suppose you want me to go to night school, and read poems!" This would have been the smarter choice, as "The Public Enemy" does make clear, just not nearly as much fun."The Public Enemy" is celebrated as one of three milestone films from 1931 that put gangster cinema in the big time. And while it doesn't have the story strength of the original "Scarface," it makes up for this lack with Cagney's breakout performance.He's a dynamo from his first moment on screen, and remains so for the run of the film. He obviously relished the choice one-liners and hard-nosed confrontations, but excels just as much with his non- verbal acting, like his playful uppercut jabs, his leering grins, and his infectious wink. You aren't meant to like the guy, and don't, but try to keep your eyes off him.Solid support is given by a secondary cast of heavies, like Tom's buddy Matt Doyle (Edward Woods), along for the ride even when he's clearly unnerved by Tom's manic moments. Leslie Fenton is debonair Nails Nathan, a mob boss whose smooth, charismatic manner keeps Tom in line...for a while. Tom's underworld sponsor, Paddy Ryan (Robert Emmett O'Connor), seems decent by mob standards, but he's a lightweight against the sort of trouble Tom attracts.You could almost subtitle this film "Fun With Food" with all the times food is used unpleasantly. Tom's upright brother throws a keg of beer into a table. Paddy Ryan proves the most disgusting eater of potato chips until Homer Simpson. Tom and Matt turn a prize horse into dog food. And of course, there's that grapefruit.The grapefruit scene is "The Public Enemy's" single most-remembered moment, and fun to watch. Yet it works in forwarding the message of the film, which is the coarsening effect crime has on a person like Tom. Even riding high, he can't help himself when a girlfriend named Kitty (Mae Clarke) he's become frustrated with hesitates about serving him booze with his breakfast. His is a classic overreaction, and funny for that, but instructive, too.Tom really isn't presented as a likable guy. We watch him because it's Cagney, but you aren't meant to sympathize with him. For all the pious words we get about crime not paying, from the ponderously- portrayed brother and from the opening and closing credits, it's Tom himself that brings this message home.The film isn't perfect. The Cagney-less opening is slow and labored, with leaden, stylized performances all around. The story itself is kind of episodic and not well-stitched together. Jean Harlow does a brief turn as one of Tom's romantic interests to pointless effect. Paddy locking his boys in an apartment without their guns is about as smart as putting them in a warehouse awaiting a shipment of booze from Al Capone.Overall, though, when "The Public Enemy" is good, it's very good. Director William Wellman shows why he is regarded as an innovator of sound cinema, with an opening pan shot that goes 270 degrees around a city street, or a fatal fur heist shot in near-total darkness that gives it an expressionistic veneer. Tracking shots give you a sense of motion and of danger that more than makes up for the lack of visible violence. It's all in your head, and worse that way.Most important, Wellman knew he had a prize stallion in Cagney and rides him to glory, keeping him in frame for nearly the entire film. Early Hollywood sent up many stars, but few still burn as bright as Cagney does here.

Jean Harlow ruined her health (and died young) because of her bleached out platinum blonde hair, and looks a bit chunky (the 1920's term was "scatback") but is the perfect foil for tough little James Cagney (was he short!) in the movie that "put him on the map." From a script entitled "Beer and Blood," his character starts out innocently enough stealing $1 pocket watches from "Woolworth's." Soon he is a whiskey runner and beer "distributor" as prohibition begins. Whiskey transported in a gasoline tanker? He is fast and loose with his women, and shoves a grapefruit in Mae Clark's face. He's hellfire with a gun. He shots a cop. He kills his old boss "Putty Nose" and a race horse. He steals two blue steel .38 revolvers from the gun store owner! His "goody-two shoes" brother Mike goes to war and comes back a hero. He finally gets what he deserves and is shot down in a hail of bullets, with a machine gun. Most violence is only "heard" off-screen,but it's still pretty effective. His mama continues to believe that he is a good boy. He is left on his doorstep, looking like a mummy wrapped in hospital bandages and plaster casts. He falls forward (quite dead) in a shocking finale. TCM does a great job of restoration. When I saw this many years ago on TV, it was nothing but a pile of splices and scratches with a terrible soundtrack. A must-see, but (for me) not enjoyable enough for repeated viewing. Curiously, Jean Harlow is shown in the lobby poster with fire-red hair!

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.