Director: William A Wellman
Starring: James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Joan Blondell
More Info: IMDB
Plot: A young hoodlum rises up through the ranks of the Chicago underworld, even as a gangster's accidental death threatens to spark a bloody mob war.
My Rating: 9.5/10
Would I watch it again? You bet your face full of grapefruit!
It KILLS me how few pictures I have watched in the past couple of years that star my favorite actor, James Cagney. He's absolutely amazing in everything he does. You can't not watch him when he's on screen. He's always doing something (little things he always called, "business"). His facial expressions, the rapid fire speech, everything. THE PUBLIC ENEMY is the perfect introduction for anyone who's never experienced this badass motherfucker in action.
Back in my teens I watched LITTLE CAESAR (1931) with Edward G. Robinson (another all-time favorite of mine) and then THE PUBLIC ENEMY, having heard such great things about both films. It was the beginning of a long and beautiful relationship with my love for 30s (and beyond) gangster pictures and Robinson & Cagney. LITTLE CAESAR was good but TPE was even better. If you've seen DRACULA (1931) with Lugosi and then FRANKENSTEIN (1931) with Karloff you know what I mean. The former pictures are good albeit stagy and somewhat static. The latter are both outstanding and set the standard for their type of film from that day forward.
I would say Cagney is in rare form here but then he's always this good in just about every picture of his I've seen. He's a badass throughout that doesn't take any lip from anyone and he certainly knows how to charm the stockings off the hotties! Take this scene...
GWEN: I'm not accustomed to riding with, uh, strangers.
TOM: We're not going to be strangers.So that's how you pick up chicks. It's been officially added to my playbook.
If there's one image or clip you've seen of TPE, it's this one.
My favorite scene is when Tom and Matt happen upon Putty Nose, the low life hood that screwed them over in their youth. It's been a lot of years and Tom always wanted his revenge. He's about to satiate it. They follow him back to his flat. Putty makes nervous small talk ('cause he knows he's about to breathe his last) and makes his way to the piano where he plays a little tune he used to play for them all those years ago...
(singing) "Tell me how long...do I have to wait...
or can I get you now, or must I hesitate...
Lizzie Jones, big and fat,
slipped on the ice
and broke her (BAM!)" BAM!
Tom, with a snap in his step, calls for Matt (who's clearly struck by his viciousness) to go get the girls as if nothing happened. It's one of the most chilling and effective kills I've ever seen...and you don't even see it. It's fucking badass and it's very easy to see where Joe Pesci pulled his inspiration for his character in GOODFELLAS (whose name was Tommy, btw).
Immediately following the funeral for their good pal, Nails Nathan, who was killed when his horse threw him, Tom and Matt pay the horse a visit. After asking the horse's keeper how much it's worth, they pay the man and head for the stall to put two plugs in it.
And then there's a nice funny little scene where Tom procures some pistols...
TOM: "How do ya load that?"
CLERK: "Foist, ya blreak it. Then ya stick the cartlridges in the holes"TOM: "Uh, huh. Can I see?"
"Like that?" (as he inserts a few bullets)CLERK: "It'll hold six."
TOM: "Oh, this'll be enough."
TOM: "Stick 'em up!"Classic. And here's yet another example of how effective "not seeing" a murder makes it more violent. Tom's going to interrupt a meeting of the gang that he's at war with. They've killed a few too many of his friends. He follows them into their place and starts throwing lead around. We never see anything except the outcome...seconds later, Tom emerges and he's been injured. All we heard were gunshots and some agonizing screams. That's it.
The ending, which I won't spoil even though I'm dying to show the most harrowing image of the picture, is shocking and downright frightening. It still creeps me out. It ain't pretty. THE PUBLIC ENEMY is nothing short of an amazing cinematic achievement. If there's one 1930s gangster picture you need to see, it's this one. And then you need to see Cagney in another powerhouse performance with an ending even more gut wrenching than this one in ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES (1938). These two films stand tallest among the great gangster films of all time.
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I know it's been two years since you've written this review, but I'd thought you'd like to know that the stagey 1931 Edward G. Robinson movie you're referring to is Little Caesar not Scarface.
ReplyDeleteScarface on the other hand was filmed in 1930, but not released until 1932 due to censorship problems. That movie stars Paul Muni and George Raft. It was directed by Howard Hawks (The Big Sleep) and produced by Howard Hughes (Of The Aviator fame).
It was far from stagey and has a lot of action, transitions, alternate camera angles, use of shadow and lighting, and visual symbolism (X’s for every time a person is murdered) that make it stick out from other early talkies.
If you haven't seen Scarface the original, I'd check it out at least to compare with the other two movies. It has a similar plot to Little Caesar (a small time hood rises to the top to fall by the end) and some scenes in common with The Public Enemy (blowing up store fronts, intimidating clients into selling their booze that includes turning on faucets to drain booze), but it holds it’s own in originality as well. Drive by shootings, the first use of the St. Valentine’s Massacre in film. The mother shuns him, the cops actually doing something than sitting around, the main character being a psychopath. I assure you there is no drop of blood and the murders are done off screen like the other two films. Oh and Boris Karloff shows up as a rival gangster.
Paul Muni who played Tony Camonte in Scarface came from the Yiddish Theater like Edward G. Robinson. They were both Eastern European and immigrated to the United States when they were children and they share a cousin in common. His acting is considered over the top and not to everyone's taste. I sure enjoyed his performance though.
Cagney's my favorite actor of all time (that's how I found your blog), but I do like Scarface better than The Public Enemy and Little Caesar. I watch it more often then the other two. Scarface has my other favorite actor George Raft as Tony/Scarface's henchman. You can see him get punched out by Cagney in Taxi! after the dance competition. Cagney sought him out to do the dance scene because they knew each other during their Broadway days. Raft like Cagney was a dancer before doing gangster roles in Hollywood. The two would star together in Each Dawn I Die in 1939. I’d check that out to see the two interact. Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.'s character in Little Caesar is based on him (that sounds unlikely, but the author W.R. Burnett confirmed so). To bad they didn't hire the real Raft to do the movie. He was probably filming Scarface at the time and wasn't a proven actor like Fairbanks was at the time. Ah well.
I fixed my mistake about Scarface. I must have been face-deep in vodka-drenched grapefruit when I wrote this. I recently revisited Scarface and it gets better every time. Muni was fantastic and it's technically a better film (and daring) than The Public Enemy but Cagney tips it over the edge for me. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your comment. I haven't caught Each Dawn I Die yet but I will eventually. I've got all but 2 or 3 Cagney films in my collection and I will see them all.
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