The Public Enemy

The gangster movie has always wrestled with the issue of glamorizing the lifestyle. The money, the notoriety, the trappings, all of it is more focused on than the men (because it's always men) who are in it and what make them tick. We've seen in recent years shows like The Sopranos that look to demystify the mafioso by presenting them as real people, but it's the exception, not the rule. So it's a surprise to me find that attempt at psychoanalysis and deconstruction was attempted in 1931 with The Public Enemy. It's not as in-depth as something you'd find in modern times, but for the time, this was as against the grain as it got, as it shows the prices to be paid, mentally and otherwise, on someone who gets into organized crime. James Cagney plays Tom Powers, a kid who grew up in the shadow of his brother Mike, who worked and went to school to better himself and support his mom and wife. As a kid, Tom starts off as a troublemaker and a petty thief, which ends up leading to being a bootlegger and an enforcer in the mob as a young adult. He thinks he's successful because he has fancy suits and nice cars and hot dames and money falling out of his pockets ... but he can't bring himself to tell his mom how he makes his living, so you know he's ashamed. And Mike knows it and makes his disapproval known, shaming Tom even further. All throughout the movie, Tom struggles with his own self-worth, desperate to be above everybody else because he feels beneath them; when a girlfriend starts to show a little backbone, he ditches her. When an old friend who ran out on him as a kid slides back into town, Tom gets murderous revenge. Tom is a broken person, lashing out at the world because of his own insecurities. His crimes are never glamorized. The lifestyle is never treated as paradisaical. There is always a demonstrable path between what he has and how he got it. And it is as unapologetic as it can get for 1931 in showing the darker side of life. Cops and criminals alike are murdered and left bleeding in the streets. The mob is shown in no uncertain terms as a business nobody gets out of alive. Women are treated like disposable toys, and are treated for their loyalty with the kind of loyalty one shows gum stuck on the bottom of a shoe. And nobody has any moral compass. There's even a scene of woman-on-man rape. This isn't de Palma's Scarface, but for 1931, this was positively scandalous, I'm sure. The direction doesn't go for artsy flourishes. It is down and dirty like the subject matter, and lets events speak for themselves. The only music is diegetic; there is no score whatsoever to steer the viewer's emotions. This can lend the movie to something of a dry tone on occasion, but I think it's to the movie's benefit, especially in the last haunting scene. This kind of old movie isn't going to be for everybody. It's certainly no Carlito's Way or Casino in terms of violence, and it isn't as somber and reflective as, say, The Godfather. It's a movie that has to be appreciated for when it was made. If you can't do that, it'll feel stiff and antiquated. But if you can view it like a historical document and appreciate it where it lives, you'll find a much more challenging movie than you'd expect.