“The Public Enemy” is a Crime Drama, Written by Kubec Glasmon, John Bright and Harvey F. Thew and Directed by William A. Wellman.
The
movie is the story of best friends and fellow gangsters, Tom Powers and Matt
Doyle (James Cagney and Edward Woods).
However,
their lives are frowned upon by Tom's straight-laced brother, Mike (Donald
Cook), and Matt's straight laced sister, Molly (Rita Flynn).
Nonetheless
the hoodlums rise up through the ranks of the Chicago underworld, from their teen-aged
years into young adulthood, and have an increasingly lucrative life,
bootlegging during the Prohibition era.
Tom
in particular becomes more and more brazen in what he is willing to do and
becomes more violent against those who stand in his way, disagree with him or
cross him, until a gangster's accidental death threatens to spark a bloody mob
war.
Also
in the line-up are Robert Emmett O'Connor as Paddy Ryan and Joan Blondell as
Mamie.
The most famous scene is of course, Cagney smashing
a grapefruit into the face Mae Clarke (Jean Harlow), but there is a lot more to
this film than that.
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