8 / 10
Official trailer
The Public Enemy is William A. Wellman’s 1931 American gangster film. The film depicts the life of Chicago street tough Tom Powers from his youth as a small-time thief through his rise as a Prohibition-era bootlegger and his eventual death in gangland violence. It reads as direct response to actual 1920s Chicago gangster activity that included Al Capone, Bugs Moran, and the heavy network of organized crime that Prohibition created. James Cagney plays Tom Powers. Edward Woods plays his friend Matt Doyle. Beryl Mercer plays Tom’s mother Mrs. Powers.
Donald Cook plays Tom’s brother Mike Powers. Joan Blondell plays Mamie. Jean Harlow plays Gwen Allen. Mae Clarke plays Kitty, the woman to whom Cagney delivers the famous grapefruit-in-the-face scene. Murray Kinnell plays Putty Nose. Kubec Glasmon and John Bright wrote the screenplay. Warner Bros. produced the film on a budget of approximately 150,000 dollars, and it grossed approximately 5 million dollars on initial release. The work received an Academy Award nomination for Best Story.
Cagney grabs this film by the collar in his first scene and never lets go, and for me he’s the whole reason to watch it. He’s fast, mean and funny, and nearly a century later he still makes most screen tough guys look like they’re posing. The film around him shows its age more than he does, and that gap is where my 8 comes from.
James Cagney became a major star with The Public Enemy, one of the foundational American gangster films. The 1930s gangster cycle began with Little Caesar (1931) released months before Public Enemy, and continued through Scarface (1932), G Men (1935), and wide directors who followed. Each early gangster film established conventions that other filmmakers developed.
Three contributions came from The Public Enemy: the rapid-fire dialogue style that Cagney perfected, the visual depiction of urban violence that Production Code constraints would later limit, and the narrative pattern of working-class boy rising through organized crime before falling to violence. The grapefruit scene where Cagney mashes a grapefruit into Mae Clarke’s face has acquired particular cultural reference standing exceeding most pre-Code violent imagery.
Cagney as Tom Powers
James Cagney plays Tom Powers with the controlled aggression that became his career trademark.
The performance combines verbal speed, physical compactness, and underlying menace that conventional 1931 leading-man performances didn’t provide. Cagney was thirty-two during production and had recently arrived in Hollywood after a real vaudeville career. The vaudeville training gave him verbal rhythm and physical timing that purely film-trained actors couldn’t match.
Nobody else on screen in 1931 moves like him. That vaudeville timing makes every threat land a beat before I expect it, and I can’t take my eyes off him.
The Public Enemy launched Cagney as one of the principal Warner Bros. stars for the later two decades. His later entries in the genre including Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), The Roaring Twenties (1939), White Heat (1949), and Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) extended his range while preserving the underlying intensity that Public Enemy built. Cagney’s career shows that single breakthrough roles can launch sustained stardom when the performer continues to develop work that builds on the breakthrough instead of departing from it entirely.
For Writers
Breakthrough roles can launch sustained careers when later work builds on instead of departs from the breakthrough. The same applies to creative work. The contributor whose later work extends earlier success often sustains the career longer than the contributor who attempts complete reinvention.
The Grapefruit Scene
The film contains a brief sequence where Tom Powers, frustrated with his girlfriend Kitty during breakfast, picks up a half grapefruit and mashes it into her face. The sequence lasts approximately five seconds and was reportedly improvised during production. The grapefruit scene has become a much-referenced moment in pre-Code Hollywood cinema. This casual male violence against women generated major later discussion about how 1930s production permitted material that later Production Code enforcement would have prevented.
The grapefruit scene’s lasting cultural standing depends partly on its brevity and partly on its unmarked staging. The film doesn’t present the moment as climactic. Tom returns to his breakfast. Kitty disappears from the narrative.
The casualness gave the moment particular impact that more deliberate staging would have prevented. Later pre-Code productions including Baby Face (1933) and others depicted similar adult content that 1934 Production Code enforcement would prevent. The Public Enemy works as historical document of what American cinema permitted before strict Code enforcement began.
The grapefruit still makes me wince, and I think the offhand staging is exactly right. The film doesn’t pause to judge Tom, so I have to, and that unsettles me more than any lecture could. It’s an ugly moment that tells you everything about him in five seconds.
For Writers
Casual staging can produce more impact than deliberate emphasis. Novelists should keep this one in mind. The disturbing moment treated as routine can generate stronger response than the disturbing moment marked for the reader’s attention.
The Prohibition Context
Actual 1920s Chicago bootlegging operations fill The Public Enemy, and American audiences in 1931 understood them as direct reference to recent history. The film names actual products including Pittsburgh Phil Stout. The territorial conflicts between gangs reflected the actual 1929 Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre and related violence. The film worked as journalism alongside entertainment for audiences who had been following Chicago gangster activity through newspaper coverage.
This gangster lifestyle was treated with significant interest alongside the eventual moral judgment. Tom Powers lives well during his bootlegging period. His clothes improve. His apartments expand. His access to alcohol, women, and respect increases dramatically. The film shows that crime pays well during the period before consequences arrive. The material prosperity made the eventual violent death feel earned instead of arbitrary. Later 1934 Production Code enforcement would require gangster films to depict criminal activity less attractively. The Public Enemy represents what American cinema could show before that constraint.
After Cagney, the high-living stretch is what I enjoy most. The sharper suits and bigger apartments feel like a newspaper story come to life, and I like that the film lets the good times look good before it sends the bill.
For Writers
Historical context shapes what works can show. Useful for creative work. Material that one period permits another period may prohibit. The constraints affecting your work today may not affect work in later periods.
Craft Note
William A. Wellman directed wide range across his career including Wings (1927) which won the first Best Picture Academy Award, The Public Enemy, A Star Is Born (1937), The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), and many other productions. His ability to handle multiple genres while consistently maintaining production quality made him one of the more reliable Warner Bros. directors of the classical Hollywood period. Wellman directed films across approximately three decades of consistent commercial output.
Does The Public Enemy still hold up?
It holds up, mostly because of Cagney, and I’d take him in this over a lot of modern screen gangsters.
His performance has a verbal speed, a physical compactness and a menace no 1931 leading man offered. The grapefruit scene still stings because it’s thrown away, and the Prohibition detail gives the film the feel of fresh journalism. The creaky staging and stiff supporting players keep it at an 8. Anyone interested in gangster cinema or pre-Code Hollywood should see it.
