The Public Enemy (1931)

Nora's Nite
Homemade Chili, Salad, Birthday Cake

Filmsite: The Public Enemy (1931) is one of the earliest and best of the gangster films from Warner Bros. in the thirties. The film's screenplay (by John Bright and Kubec Glasmon), which received the film's only Academy Award nomination, was based upon their novel Beer and Blood. Unfortunately, the film wasn't even given a Best Picture nomination, nor was Cagney rewarded with a nomination for his dynamic and kinetic performance. Jean Harlow's small role as a sexy call-girl was her only screen appearance with Cagney and her only lead role with Warners.

Director William Wellman's pre-code, box-office smash, shot in less than a month at a cost of approximately $151,000, was released at approximately the same time as another classical gangster film - Little Caesar (1930) that starred Edward G. Robinson as a petty thief whose criminal ambitions led to his inevitable downfall. The Public Enemy was even tougher, more violent and realistic (released before the censorship codes were strictly enforced), although most of the violence is again off-screen.

The lead character is portrayed as a sexually magnetic, cocky, completely amoral, emotionally brutal, ruthless, and terribly lethal individual. However, the protagonist (a cold-blooded, tough-as-nails racketeer and "public enemy") begins his life, not as a hardened criminal, but as a young mischievous boy in pre-Prohibition city streets, whose early environment clearly contributes to the evolving development of his life of adult crime and his inevitable gruesome death. Unlike other films, this one examined the social forces and roots of crime in a serious way.

Cagney's character was based on real-life Chicago gangster Earl "Hymie" Weiss (who also survived a machine-gun ambush) and bootlegging mobster Charles Dion "Deanie" O'Banion (an arch-rival to Al Capone). Reportedly, an exasperated Weiss slammed an omelette (not a grapefruit) into the face of his girlfriend. Similarities also exist between the demise of Nails Nathan and the 1923 death of real-life Samuel J. "Nails" Morton of the O'Banion mob. The retaliatory horse killing in the film was a replay of a similar incident when organized crime figure Louis "Two-Gun" Alterie (and other North Side gang members) executed the offending horse in Chicago after the death of their friend.

James Cagney's dynamic, charismatic and magnetic characterization of the murderous thug was his fifth film performance. He had previously performed tough-guy roles in two other Warner Bros. features: Sinner's Holiday (1930) (his film debut with co-star Joan Blondell) and director Archie Mayo's The Doorway to Hell (1930). This volatile role made him famous and instantly launched his celebrated film star career, but it also typecast him for many years. [Originally, the roles were reversed, with Edward Woods playing the lead role, and Cagney in a secondary role, but a switch occurred when the contract screenwriters suggested that a mistake had been made. Therefore, the end credits bill Edward Woods above Cagney.] Cagney went on to play other criminal roles, including such films as Smart Money (1931) with Edward G. Robinson (their only teaming together), and Lady Killer (1933).

Unfortunately, the film also appeared to glamorize criminal activities such as bootlegging (although that was not its intent), and emphasized their high style of life with various floozies (portrayed by Joan Blondell, Mae Clarke, and Jean Harlow). Hence, the film hastened efforts of Hollywood's self-imposed Production Code in the early thirties to strictly censor films (with criminal and sexual subject matter) that depicted undesirable social figures or sexual subjects in a sympathetic or realistic way.

John Bright - Screenwriter (1908 - 1989)
Born in Baltimore, Maryland. He began his career at 13 as Ben Hecht's copy boy on the Chicago Daily News. He later became a crime reporter and at 19 published his first book, Hizonner Big Bill Thompson, an unauthorized biography of Chicago's mayor. When the mayor sued him, he moved to Hollywood, where he began writing gangster stories with Kubec Glasmon, a Polish-born pharmacist who employed him as a soda jerk. Their novelette-length Beer and Blood became the basis for THE PUBLIC ENEMY (1931), a milestone in the American cinema's gangster genre and in the career of the star, James Cagney. Under contract to Warner Bros., the two collaborated on a number of other crime and action films in 1931-32. Bright then moved to Paramount.

In 1933, rebelling against the low wages and poor working conditions of Hollywood writers, Bright and Glasmon were among the 10 founders of the Screen Writers Guild (now the Writers Guild of America). A political activist with leftist leanings, Bright was blacklisted in 1951 after being named a Communist in testimony before the House Un-American Activities hearings.

Returning to Hollywood from seven years of self-exile in Mexico, he wrote magazine articles and became a reader, story editor and literary advisor for Bill Cosby's production company. He was instrumental in the company's filming of JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN (1971), the antiwar film by Dalton Trumbo, one of the Hollywood Ten.

Other notable screenwriting credits (alone or in collaboration) include SMART MONEY (1931), UNION DEPOT, THE CROWD ROARS, THREE ON A MATCH and IF I HAD A MILLION (all 1932), SHE DONE HIM WRONG (1933), THE ACCUSING FINGER, HERE COMES TROUBLE and GIRL OF THE OZARKS (all 1936), JOHN MEADE'S WOMAN and SAN QUENTIN (both 1937), BROADWAY and SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE VOICE OF TERROR (both 1942), I WALK ALONE, JOE PALOOKA IN FIGHTING MAD, OPEN SECRET and CLOSE-UP (all 1948), THE KID FROM CLEVELAND (1949), THE BRAVE BULLS (1951) and LA REBELIÓN DE LOS COLGADOS / THE REBELLION OF THE HANGED (1954, uncredited).

New York Times on John Bright: Distinguished screenwriter John Bright began his career as a teenage copyboy at the Chicago Daily News. He was soon promoted to reporter, and before he was 20 wrote the unauthorized biography Hizzoner Big Bill Thompson. Soon after being sued by the notorious Chicago mayor, young Bright came to Hollywood with his partner Kubec Glasmon, a former drugstore owner who had once hired Bright as a fountaineer, and began writing gangster stories. Together they penned the novelette "Beer and Blood," which they later adapted into the classic film Public Enemy (1931). The two wrote several more gangster and action films before splitting up in late 1932 when Bright moved to Paramount.

The following year, he and Glasmon began stridently protesting the low pay and poor working conditions that Hollywood writers endured. To change things, they and eight others founded the Screen Writers Guild (which later became the Writers Guild of America). In 1951, after writing The Brave Bull, Bright's leftist political activism--which began during the Sacco and Vanzetti trial--led him to be blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Six years before, his involvement with the Conference of Studio Unions caused him to be fired by MGM. Following the blacklisting, Bright exiled himself to Mexico for seven years. Upon his return he became a free-lance journalist, a story reader, story editor, and a literary advisor for Bill Cosby's production company.

In 1971, Bright played a key role in the filming of Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun.

Jean Harlow Official Bio (?!): Jean left home at age 16 to marry 23-year-old Charles McGrew. Shortly after the wedding the couple left Chicago and moved to Beverly Hills. Jean's true aspiration in life was to be a wife and mother, however she sought work as an extra in films to please Mother Jean. Although at first Jean was not interested in making films, she received her first role in Why is a Plumber? in 1927. She and McGrew divorced after two years, but her big career break was about to occur.

In 1930, movie producer and entrepreneur Howard Hughes became interested in Jean and cast her in Hell's Angels. In Hell's Angels, she spoke the now famous line, "Would you be shocked if I changed into something more comfortable?" Jean's appearance in Hell's Angels solidified her role as America's new sex symbol. This victory was followed by another hit, Platinum Blonde, and several films with Clark Gable. In total, she and Gable would star in six movies together including Red Dust, The Secret Six and Wife vs. Secretary. During the filming of Red Dust, Jean's second husband of only two months, producer Paul Bern, committed suicide.

In 1933's Dinner at Eight, Jean was at her comedic best. Later that year she starred in Bombshell, a Hollywood parody based loosely on her real-life experiences with her controlling mother and greedy stepfather. Also in 1933, Jean married cinematographer Harold Rosson in a union that would only last eight months. To accompany her escalating career, in 1935 she legally changed her name to Jean Harlow, her mother's maiden name.

Following the end of her marriage, Jean found the love of her life in actor William Powell. They were together for two years, however before they could wed, Jean's health declined. While filming Saratoga in 1937, Jean was hospitalized with uremic poisoning and kidney failure, a result of the scarlet fever she had suffered during childhood. In the days before dialysis and kidney transplants, nothing could be done and Jean died on June 7, 1937. The film had to be finished using long angle shots and a double, Mary Dees. Clark Gable was reported to have said that he felt as if he was "in the arms of a ghost." After a large Hollywood funeral organized by Louis B. Mayer of MGM, Jean was buried in the mausoleum in Forest Lawn Glendale, in Los Angeles.

Gregory Speck interviews James Cagney:

James Cagney: It was basically no different then than it is today. It was just everyday living. With me, it was fighting, more fighting, and more fighting. Life then was simply the way it was: ordinary, not bad, not good, just regular. No stress, no strain. Of course, no one had much of anything, but we didn't know that we were poor.

We certainly didn't feel poor. My family lived mostly in a variety of tenement apartments in Yorkville on the Upper East Side, which at that point still had a lot of ethnic flavor: Irish, German Zech, Hungarian, and so forth. On address I remember was 81st Street and York Avenue, where my father had a saloon. Yes, it was rough, and it was tough, but since I was a fighter, and a good one at that, it was not really so hard. In fact, you could say that it was easy for me, for I guess I was a pretty tough little kid. For my brothers Harry and Eddie, though, who eventually became doctors, it was not so easy. They were athletic, but didn't like to fight, so I had to stick up for them, which I was glad to do. My brother Bill, who became my Hollywood business manager, didn't mind a fight either, so we made a pretty strong family. We stuck together; We had to, because it was a "knock'em down, drag'em out" kind of world. It built character and made us strong. I learned how to take care of myself by fighting in the streets, and it was all part of the game. It helped me later in Hollywood, too.

Speck: In 1931 you created a sensation in The Public Enemy, directed by William Wellman.

Cagney: I don't know about this sensation business, but The Public Enemy was the film that really launched my career. I played a mean, mixed-up hood, a tough kid who tried to throw his weight around and ended up dead. It was a good part. I don't think I took anything away from it. It just kind of flowed along. As you may know, the first title was Beer and Blood. It was one of the first of many chances I had to portray that kind of person, the fist-swinging gangster who becomes ruthless in order to succeed. There were many tough guys to play in the scripts that Warner kept assigning me. Each of my subsequent roles in the hoodlum genre offered the opportunity to inject something new, which I always tired to do. One could be funny, and the next one flat. Some roles were mean, and others were meaner. A few roles among them were actually sympathetic and kind-hearted, and I preferred them, but generally did not get to do many of those parts until much later in my career, for the public seemed to prefer me as a bad guy. Since I was most frequently cast as a criminal, constantly on the prod, I rarely to do the comedy roles I really would have preferred. I am really not at all like the character I played in The Public Enemy. I'm chiefly pretty quiet and reserved and private. Nervertheless, I had lots of gangster roles then, and in The roaring Twenties and in White Heat, and too much of the same thing gets to be too much. I don't understand why the public never tired of those awful hoodlums. William Wellman did a good job on The Public Enemy I thought, as he did on the earlier picture I did with him, Other Men's Women , in which I played opposite Joan Blondell and Mary Astor. He let me go my way and develop my own interpretation whenever it was possible. With other members of the cast of The Public Enemy such as Jean Harlow and Joan, however, he was less understanding. Having this kind of discernment makes for a good director. It was he who suggested that I squash that half a grapefruit into Mae Clarke's face in the famous scene, and it set a precedent in the abuse of women in films. In my next film, Smart Money, which starred Edward G. Robinson, I again had to hit a lady in the face.

What advice would you give someone just coming into the profession?

Cagney: Just walk in , plant your feet, look'em in the eye, and tell the truth. When you're an actor, you go out on the stage, or the set, and you act. But if you're a dancer, you're everything, for you have to act and often sing as well when you're dancing. I did all three. Luckily, I started to learn it at an early age, and I could make my body behave as I wanted it to. I heard everything I could when I was still young.
Anecdote: James Cagney, famed for his tough guy persona, was understandably nervous about making his first stage appearance in 1919 - as a chorus girl - complete with a red wig and tutu - in a female impersonation show called Every Sailor!

Another Anecdote: After seeing James Cagney in a Broadway production, Twentieth Century-Fox chief Darryl F. Zanuck gave him a small role in George Arliss's The Millionaire (1931). Though he had been impressed with the novice actor on Broadway, Zanuck was stunned when he saw the rushes. Cagney, apparently, was uncomfortable before the lens. In a loop of unedited film, however, Cagney turned toward the camera and, thinking that the scene was over, curled his lip in anger, and suddenly exclaimed: "For God's sake! Who wrote this crappy dialogue anyway!" And Zanuck knew he had found the tough young punk he was looking for.

Awesome William Wellman interview: Are you scared of dying?

I hate to think about it. Certainly I am. I don't want to die now and I didn't want to then. I just didn't think about it as much then as I do now. I'm funny that way; I'm an Episcopalian, supposedly. I'm supposed to think there's a God. I say my prayers every night because my mother always taught me to.

Nowadays, lots of people look on World War One with nostalgia, as the last of the "noble" wars.

Balls. In that movie The Blue Max and others, these guys would come back to these beautifully dressed dames and champagne. Goddamn! At Lunéville, where I was stationed, there was one fairly good-looking girl and her mother. One. All the menfolk had been killed and she and her mother took in laundry. She wore wooden shoes, and your reputation was based on whether you were a no shoe man, a one shoe man or a two shoe man. If, during sex, you could shake both her shoes off, you were a hell of a lay.

She took everybody on?

Not everybody. She confined it mostly to flyers. But, hell, there was no one else.

How many pilots were left after the war?

Out of 222, eighty-seven were killed. I flew with Tom Hitchcock, the great polo player. Tom and I were in the "Black Cat" group.

On making The Public Enemy: How did you come to make Public Enemy?

I got the story from two druggists from Chicago. They were visiting the studio when they stopped me and asked me if I'd read their story. They were such nice guys that I asked them to sit down and have lunch with me. There they told me the story. At that time, it was called "Beer and Blood". I went nuts about it and went in to see Zanuck and told it to him. He said, "Bill, I can't do this, I've just made Little Caesar and Doorway to Hell." I said, "I'll make this so goddamn tough you'll forget both of them." So he said O.K.

How'd you pick Cagney?

Didn't pick Cagney - Eddie Woods played the role, the main role. We had shot for three days, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. On Sunday, I went in to see the rushes and called Zanuck who was in New York at the time.

"We've made a frightful mistake. We've got the wrong man playing the wrong part. This Cagney is the guy."

So he said, "O.K., make the switch."

Didn't Woods resent it?

Sure he resented it, but I didn't give a goddamn. I said, "Look, you're not good enough for us. Play the second lead." And he was lucky to get that. I had to be honest with him. So he agreed - what else could he do? I could always get somebody else if he didn't like it and he knew it.

What about the famous grapefruit scene?

I've been married so many times, and they were all beautiful. 90% of all the domestic troubles I had with these wives was my fault. But this one particular wife, whenever there was any anger (and you've got to have a few rows, for Christ's sake), this beautiful face would just freeze and wouldn't say a word. It used to just kill me. You're whipped, you're licked before you start. Anyway, I like grapefruit halves and when we used to eat breakfast I often thought of taking that goddamn grapefruit and just mushing it right in that lovely, beautiful, cold face. I never did it really, because I did it in Public Enemy.

That was your scene?

That was my scene. I know Zanuck says it's his but he's a goddamn liar. I can show you in the script. Cagney was supposed to throw the grapefruit at the woman.

I'm one of the very few directors who likes Zanuck - as a producer. You see, pictures that still live, that are still successful, are made with the combination of a writer and a director and a producer. The writer and the director gave the producer the talent, the producer gave them the money and got the hell out of the way. Now, for Christ's sake, there's the Producer, the Associate Producer, the Assistant to the Producer, the Assistant to the Associate Producer, all of them lined up against one poor goddamn director. And all the women that they've got, whether they're married to them or living with them . . . Jesus, the pillow talk that goes on has ruined more great pictures than anything you can imagine, including the agents and the unions.