the audience applauded

A lot of fun.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Jimmy Cagney is in his first starring role as Tom Powers, who starts out even as a child doing naughty things such as stealing roller skates and lying about the fact, despite having a policeman father who keeps spanking him as a result. He has a straitlaced older brother who keeps fighting with him over this bad behavior, and as everyone gets older, Tom and his childhood friend become young criminals and eventually mobsters, hitting the big time in dealing with booze when Prohibition is enacted. Tom becomes more brazen and harsh over time, and takes women easily and discards them with equal speed. He barely keeps contact with his family, his brother furious with him for his having chosen the life of crime. But the good times don't last...Of note is the fact that most of the violence is depicted off screen, and the sexuality implied but clear. But Tom Power's becoming a more and more unpleasant person is very clearly depicted. What make this different from the standard morality play is when Tom Powers is forced to become aware of what he has become when things turn sour. Recommended, and not merely as a period piece.

Public enemy is one of the most iconic gangster film I've had watched. The only other gangster films I've scene was Scare face and that was the remake. Even though it is old for my age and time , I do recommend it to be watched. You can relate to their lives and understand why they traveled in the path that they did. I mean coming out of poverty to be the ones calling the shots and becoming wealthy even though they killed people and broke some laws along the way and then having the cops on your tale do not really have a happy ending, especially when you have other people wanting your head too .

When it was new, back in 1931 it was another time, with lots of issues, depression, prohibition and crime. Cagney was a small time NY actor looking for a break, and the director Wellman wanted a break-out performance. Actor Pat O'Brien used to describe his friend Cagney as "just a dancer gone wrong." But Cagney knew tough, in his autobiography he described growing up in the NY streets where the kids tossed bricks at each other, and sometimes the cops when they got bored. But where did this movie story come from? It turns out, two former hoodlums met when they went into the drugstore business in Chicago during prohibition and they heard a lot of bragging from their gangster clientèle and witnessed enough they decided to write a book about it and they called it BEER AND BLOOD. The cinema going public would have recognized several stories from the headlines that made it into this script, one was of a gas truck being used to smuggle beer another was the tale of a horse that caused the accidental death of a real-life hood named "Nails" Morton, finally a third event involving gangster Earl "Hymie" Weiss and an omelet. The phrase Public Enemy which is what Warner Bros. changed the title to, goes all the way back to Roman times but was popularized in Chicago by Frank Loesch, then chairman of the Chicago Crime Commission a prosecutor who stated he had a list of the outstanding hoodlums, known murderers but lacked the evidence to prove it. The FBI liked using this list so much they stole the idea and created their famous ten most wanted including at the time: John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Bonnie and Clyde and "Scarface" Al Capone. The producer of the film decided to switch directors when William "WILD BILL" Wellman said, "Let me make it and I'll make the toughest dam gangster movie of them all." Then just before filming started they switched roles for the lead actors. Cagney had been cast as the supporting role until the writers and director saw a clip of THE MILLIONAIRE, an earlier film where Cagney's direct energy and fast delivery stole the movie and he was only in one scene and that was playing an insurance salesman! Everyone realized with the proper handling this skyrocket could create a firestorm of excitement and he does. Just watch Cagney's darting eyes, his body language and winks and that famous little jab or pulled punch of his. Cagney got that famous movie mannerism from his father who died from alcoholism at the age of 42, and Jimmy was just 19 causing him to drop out of school to support his family and put his brother thru medical school. Oddly, that is the exact opposite of what his character does in tonight's film. When the movie making was over, Cagney humbly said in an interview, "Movie stars, they come and they go with an exception now and then. Two more years and I'll be looking for a job on the stage again – maybe hoofing. What's the use of kidding myself." So he quit Hollywood and took his family back to New York. But Jack Warner saw the box office lines around the blocks of the theaters playing PUBLIC ENEMY and knew they struck gold, quickly he tripled Cagney's pay and begged him to come back. The rest as they say is history. Along with Warner Brothers' earlier hit Little Caesar made the year before and Scarface made just a year after, this movie set the tone for the popular gangster dramas of the Depression period, gritty and brutally realistic, and Cagney's performance established him as the essence of the ruthless, hair-trigger hoodlum – scary but fascinating. And he made it look fun because he was having a blast doing it. So much so, that the censor board made the studio add warnings and disclaimers at the beginning and end of the film. Also in the end credits you'll see Edward Woods billed over Cagney because that's the way they were originally hired.A hard-luck moll played by Mae Clarke may have been uncredited in this film, but her performance boosted her career so much that later that same year she became more famous for the attention of another monster, FRANKENSTEIN.For added realism director Wellman asked actor Donald Cook to really hit Cagney during a fight scene, which he did, knocking out two teeth, but Jimmy stayed in character.The New York Times upon its April 1931 release, called it "just another gangster film, weaker than most in its story, stronger than most in its acting; Woods and Cagney give "remarkably lifelike portraits of young hoodlums" and "Beryl Mercer as Tom's mother, Robert Emmett O'Connor as a gang chief, and Donald Cook as Tom's brother, do splendidly.Three particular scenes were cut when it was re-released after the Production Code was put into effect. 1) The scene with the gay tailor was, pardon the expression trimmed. 2) The scene of a couple waking up in bed together and rolling around having fun was shortened. 3) Showing Cagney being seduced when hiding out in a woman's apartment.And finally on a recent viewing I noticed a sound effect during a spanking scene that sounds so real I don't think it was faked, but still it got past the stinkers at the production code. This film was added to the National Film Registry in 1998.

Very entertaining, even when compared to modern gangster movies. Good, solid plot, though overly moralistic and preachy, especially with the opening and closing frames including messages from the producers about how the public should be preventing hoodlums from flourishing.Good direction and editing, the movie flows along at a good, constant pace and doesn't drift. The movie is made by the acting of James Cagney, however. He turns in a superb performance: gripping, edgy, gritty, believable and dark. A pity that some of the other acting in the movie was pretty poor. Only the moralistic tone and supporting performances prevent this from being a classic.