For sheer villainy with very little charm and a purely (and intentionally) misogynistic bent, "The Public Enemy" is the James Cagney gangster picture of the 1930's era. There were many others but this one has steam rising and emanating from the screen - it is raw, visceral and accepts no substitutes. Though not exactly the best of its kind, it does show the Pre-Code danger and edge in these types of gangland pictures and it makes no apologies.
Divided into chapters showing an onscreen title of the year, "The Public Enemy" charts the rise and fall of Irish-American and Chicagoan Thomas Powers (James Cagney) who has no compunction as a youth to steal. He steals roller skates for his friend's sister and she refuses them when she finds out he stole them. Tom's father, a policeman, is a brute and heavily beats his son with very little reaction from the tot. Over the years, the kid and his childhood partner, Matt Doyle (Frankie Darro), become embroiled in petty theft crimes (one goes awry with regards to the theft of furs), work as streetcar drivers and eventually rise to the level of wealthy businessmen while bootlegging. Of course, murder by getting even percolates when Tom decides to kill Putty Nose (Murray Kinnell), the man who helped the kids in the past and decided to flee after that fur snafu. Sensible people started to see that Tom was up to no good.
Tom's mother (Beryl Mercer) loves him like a baby yet Tom's brother (Donald Cook), a World War I vet, sees through him and has heard and disapproves of his "beer and blood" enterprise. Even Tom's girlfriend Kitty (Mae Clarke) hates him and he decides to squish a grapefruit in her face in one of the most famous scenes in American cinema! In one scene, drunken Tom is seduced by a woman (Mia Marvin), who helps him and his crew hide out from a rival mob, and he smacks her the following day learning of this seduction he slept through. Leaving aside women (and a thankless though sparkling role by Jean Harlow), not even horses are safe around this guy.
"The Public Enemy" is rough and tough and a completely unsentimental picture though not especially illuminating (unless you were unaware of the notion, as served in prologue and epilogue title cards, that being a gangster was anything but a solid career choice). Still, I have to give the film credit for painting these criminals without an ounce of romanticism. There is none evident in a single performance, especially Cagney. As I said earlier, the film makes no apologies for its in-your-face violence and raw nerve. Neither did James Cagney.
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