Second film of the day:
The Public Enemy or the film in which James Cagney shoves a grapefruit in Joan Blondell's face... This is one of the great Warner gangster films, perhaps the archetypal Warner gangster film with Cagney playing one of Cinema's earliest psychopaths, a tough punk who grows up fast on the mean streets of Chicago to become a major racketeer during the Prohibition era. Made in 1931, just slipping out before the studios became ringfenced by the Production Code,
The Public Enemy still impresses with its violence, and Cagney puts the booth in with considerable relish. Directed with style and a palpable sense of realism by William Wellman, the finale in which Cagney performs a hit on a rival boss during a driving rainstorm has rarely been bettered. Highly recommended.
