Convinced by a mob boss to join his gang, Tom Powers and Matt Dylan, two young friends of thieves, who struggle against survival from the police after the mission goes wrong.
James Cagney's portrayal of a bootlegging runt is truly electrifying (he'd made five films, but this one made him a star), and Jean Harlow makes the tartiest tart imaginable.
The implication is that there are hundreds, maybe thousands of guys like Tom Powers, little criminals living fast and dying hard.
Video-Reviewmaster.com
March 02, 2008
Top notch Cagney gangster flick with memorable final scene.
Time Out
February 09, 2006
Cagney's energy and Wellman's gutsy direction carry the day, counteracting the moralistic sentimentality of the script and indelibly etching the star on the memory as a definitive gangster hero.
Its success proved, if by then there was any doubt, that audiences will go for a charismatic lowlife over a dull hero any day of the week, a lesson Hollywood never forgot.
In spite of woodenness, creakiness in plot, and unintentional humor in printed piety, ' The Public Enemy,' a film of its time, was a sensation at that time, and is still not to be missed today.
This early sound film, which made a star of James Cagney, remains one of the most influential crime-gangster films ever made, establishing the basic narrative format of the popular genre.
