Take him or leave him, one can't deny the tremendous screen presence of James Cagney. "The Public Enemy," which launched Cagney into the Hollywood big time, doesn't so much tell one cohesive story as much as it offers a series of vignettes linked by Cagney's sheer star power.<br /><br />Cagney is Tom Powers, childhood hoodlum who grows up to become an adult hoodlum and meets his end as part of a bloody gang war in 1920 Chicago. The film is positioned as part morality tale, part public service message. A title card at the film's opening announces that the filmmakers in no way mean to glamorize the gangster life, while one placed at the end announces a call to action on the part of the American public to bring an end to the seedy underworld portrayed in the movie. And to the film's credit, despite stylish direction by William Wellman and an intensely charismatic performance from Cagney, it sticks to its promise. The film has an invigorating energy, but it never once glamorizes Cagney or his lifestyle.<br /><br />There are a number of truly memorable moments in this film. Of course the famous grapefruit scene has gone down in film annals as one of them, but I was most struck by the film's shocking finale, in which the body of Cagney is dropped off at the front door of his home while his mother happily changes the sheets of his bed upstairs, thinking that "coming home" means that her son is coming home alive. Another dazzling segment is the one in which Cagney seeks revenge on the gang that killed his best friend. We see him staking out the pool hall where they have gathered, with a truly frightening and psychotic expression on his face. Then he walks through the rain directly toward the camera until his face fills the frame. After he enters the pool hall, we hear shots and a man screaming while the camera stays focused on the exterior of the building. Cagney then emerges, wounded and staggering through the rain. The whole segment feels much more violent than it actually is, because of the effective use of camera and sound (which was in its infancy, but which Wellman uses superbly).<br /><br />Most of the other actors come off poorly next to Cagney, because his style of acting was so different from the conventions of the time. Donald Cook, playing Cagney's war-hero brother, overacts to the hilt, with one foot firmly planted in silent films. A couple of females are thrown in as eye candy, but absolutely no attempt is made to develop their characters. Joan Blondell is cute and sexy, but Jean Harlow is dreadful. How this ugly, clunking, horrible actress ever achieved stardom is beyond me.<br /><br />And as frequently happens with pre-Code cinema, I was taken aback by material that you never think of appearing in films from this time period. It makes overt fun of gays and Jews, frankly addresses sex, and, most strikingly, makes a parallel between gangsters and soldiers, claiming that both murder but for different reasons. Ten years later a comment like that would NEVER appear in a Hollywood film, and movies wouldn't be comfortable criticizing war again until the 1970s.<br /><br />"The Public Enemy" is rough around the edges. You can still feel the various artists involved trying to feel their way around the new era of motion pictures, and as a result, parts of the film are uneven. But it's a striking and remarkable movie that, despite limitations placed on it by the time period and the technology available, packs a gangster-sized punch.<br /><br />Grade: A