Compared to Mervyn LeRoy's "Little Caesar", "The Public Enemy" is a little more -- well, I don't want to use the word "sophisticated" because it's anything but that. It's more -- developmental. Yes, that's the word. Little Caesar's character begins and ends as an adult gangster. Tom Powers (Jimmy Cagney) is first introduced as a young boy, hanging around with his pal Matt Doyle (Edward Woods), being whupped for stealing by his policeman father. The stern old man uses a razor strap. Maybe today it looks like child abuse to some people but it was probably common enough at the time. My mother used to break Kochloevels over my back. In any case, such punishment did neither Tom Powers nor myself any good since we both turned out wicked.<br /><br />Tom and Matt grow up into young men who are hoodlums in the employ of Puttynose, who teaches them the tricks of the trade, an Irish Fagin, but he breaks his promise and skips out on them when they need his help. Years later, an unforgiving Tom wreaks his revenge on the pathetic Puttynose. Then Tom and Matt are taken under the wing of Paddy Ryan, and finally Samuel "Nails" Nathan, both of whom treat our protagonists well. In fact, I rather liked Nails. He's cheerful, generous, and loyal. I mean, considering that he's a gangster, a thief, and a murderer. When Nails is thrown from his horse and killed, Tom and Matt sensibly shoot the horse. There's a sub-plot involving some dames the two guys pick up in a speakeasy. Matt marries his moll but Tom gets tired of his (Mae Clarke) and puts finito to their affair by shoving a grapefruit in her face. Mr. Nice Guy. Tom then meets Jean Harlow and she seems to fall for him, although his interest in her is rather more glandular than anything else. She doesn't make herself available in the sense that his other girl friends have and Tom is tearing his hair out, uttering hoarse, goaty cries: "A guy could go screwy from this." Her part is kind of small and Tom never does get it on with her. When a rival gang kills his friend Matt, Tom picks up two pistols, barges into the gang's hangout, and shoots it out with them, severely wounded in the process. He's visited in the hospital by his Ma, his moralistic brother, and his sister-in-law, and he asks them to forgive him. Doesn't do him any good. The rival gang kidnaps him from the hospital and delivers him to his home, full of new lead.<br /><br />Like "Little Caesar," this film gives us many scenes and characters that were to become icons. On their first big job, a friend of Tom's and Matt's, Loopy Louie, is shot by the cops and we see the wake in Louie's parlor, with a matronly immigrant mother moaning, "He was always a good boy." To a parking valet, Tom snaps, "Hey, watch it. Dat car's got gears. It ain't no Ford." As for the performances, Edward Wood was famously intended to play the lead before the roles were switched, with Cagney taking the role of Tom. It was a good decision. Matt is likable but a little wooden, whereas Cagney sizzles on screen. Jean Harlow's every line is laugh worthy. Like Cagney, she was from New York but her accent here stops just short of a parody of British. "I cahn't." And, "Me neyether." Also, she looks, well, BIG in this movie, maybe because she's paired with Cagney, but it's not just that she's as tall as he is but that she's zoftig too, a bit more broad of beam than has been noticeable in her other films.<br /><br />The censors were beginning to impose their will on the film industry, so every shooting takes place off screen and there is virtually no blood. I guess the code was not yet firm enough in place to prevent the presentation of a tailor as a homosexual. When Cagney is being fitted for his first suit, he tugs at his waist and tells the guy to leave plenty of room in their. "Here's where you need extra room," says the tailor, squeezing Cagney's upper arm, "Just feel that muscle." Cagney minces away from the encounter. Not that there's any suggestion of homosexual bonds between Tom Powers and Matt Doyle. They're just friends who grew up together.<br /><br />You must see this movie if you haven't already. It was one of three that set the genre firmly on its feet in the early 1930s, the others being "Little Caesar" and "Scarface." Look at it this way. Without these films, we might never have had "The Godfather."