‘The Public Enemy’ directed by William A. Wellman is one of a group of three pre-code movies that are considered the ancestors of the modern day gangster genre. ‘Little Caesar‘, that I reviewed in my previous post, is another movie in this trifecta.
Both movies, ‘Little Caesar’ and ‘The Public Enemy’ were releases in 1931 and set in Chicago and narrate the saga of the rise and fall of an underworld mob boss. James Cagney plays Tom Powers, who grows from a juvenile thief to a criminal boos of fame and notoriety in the criminal world, only to fall from grace as most mob bosses do.
Despite these similarities, the stories of the protagonists, their personalities and the narration are quite different and make both movies compelling watches.
James Cagney is one of the greatest anti-heroes to appear on the silver screen. Despite being small made, the raw ferocity and intensity he brought to his roles has shocked audiences of every generation. One can see like likes of Joe Pesci emulate his mannerisms and his accent. His subtle expressions and style make him seem like a character from a graphic novel that has come to life on screen. ‘The Public Enemy’ will mark Cagney as the quintessential evil ruthless, brazen, sociopath, a role he will continue to play in numerous other movies.
The plot begins with two young Irish children, Tom Powers(Cagney) and Matt Doyle ( Edward Woods) committing petty theft. Tom is the more brazen of the two seems incorrigible even when he is caught and belt whipped by his policeman father on one occasion.
‘Putty Nose’ ( Murray Kinnell), a small time gambling crook ,encourages the lads in their criminal ways and regularly buys the loot that the kids have stolen. As the boys grow up to be teens, Putty enlists them in his gang, and gives them their first assignment. He gives them his word that no harm will come to them and that he would protect them and hands them guns. The boys join his gang in a burglary that goes wrong. Tom panics and accidentally fires his gun which arouses the attention of a patrolling cop. The cop chases the gang and guns down one of the members of the gang.
The panicked boys seek out Putty for protection, only to find out that the cowardly crook has skipped town. Luckily for them, the boys manage to escape from this situation, but do not forget Putty nose’s betrayal.
Tom’s older brother Mike, who has made better lief choices, enlists in the marines to participate in the eminent second world war. He is vehemently opposed to Tom’s chosen path and tries to convince Tom to give up his ways. This only aggravates the situation and a disappointed Mike leaves for his service, leaving Tom with their loving, naive mother.
In the following years, with the onset of the prohibition era a local mob boss, Paddy Ryan (Robert O’Connor) recruits the two men, Tom and Matt as enforcers in his bootlegging business. Soon Patty forges an alliance with a powerful mob boss, Samuel “Nails” Nathan and as a result, Tom and Matt gain more notoriety, wealth and prominence in the criminal world. Tom and Matt use fear and violence, to ensure that local bars and restaurants only get their beer supplies from Nathan and from no other source.
One day the two men find two women, Kitty and Mamie. seated at a table. The women’s two dates are also at the table but have passed out from the festivities. After accosting the women, Tom begins seeing Kitty while Matt starts a relationship with Mamie.
Mike returns home and discovers that the money, Tom brings home, comes from dubious means and not from politics, as Tom claims. Mike asks Tom to leave and to have nothing more to do with himself, Mike or their mother.
Tom becomes abusive with Kitty and on one occasion, thrusts a grapefruit in her face. This scene has an interesting backstory to it. I have included links in the references that cover its details, for those who are interested. Tom dumps Kitty for Gwen (Jean Harlow), a disturbed soul who prefers Tom’s raw intensity and mistreatment, to the care and respect, she gets from other men.
Matt gets engaged to Mamie and during the celebratory party, Tom and Matt notice their old acquaintance Putty Nose seated at a table. The duo follow Putty to his house and inflict violent retribution on him. The scene where Putty begs for his life with the line, “Listen to your heart.” reminded me of a similar line from another gangster movie classic, “Miller’s crossing ” released in 1990, and produced by the Cohen brothers
Soon Nails dies from a freak accident, by falling off a horse. This mishap soon triggers a series of devastating revelations that would spell doom for his gang and for Tom and Matt. With Nails out of the way, a rival gang headed by mobster Burns, sets off a turf war which will have disastrous consequences.
The scenes of the gang war are some of the most violent scenes seen in movies in the 1930s. The disturbing end of the movie will shock even the audiences of today. While the entire cast has done their parts adequately, Cagney’s personality and performance overshadows all other characters in the movie.
While it was released the same year as ‘Little Caesar’, ‘The Public Enemy’ is far superior in its cinematography and camera work. Some scenes in ‘The Public Enemy’, filmed in the darkness, both indoors during heists or outdoor during chases across alleyways exhibit excellent camerawork that can rival the camerawork of Film Noir movies that were made decades later.
Interestingly, the dialog delivery from any of the cast does now have the long droll that was ubiquitous in ‘Little Caesar’ even though both movies were released at the same time. While I liked ‘The Public Enemy’, more than
‘Little Caesar’, I would strongly recommend that my readers should seek out and watch these quintessential gangster movies. In my forthcoming reviews, I will review the third movie in the trifecta of pre-code gangster movies, Scarface(1932) along with its 1983 remake from Brian De Palma.
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Public_Enemy
Bay Area Bloke 