The Glamorized Mobster

Yuting Li

The Public Enemy (1931) directed by William A. Wellman is a pre-code crime film about how an Irish American mobster Tom Powers (James Cagney) rose in the underworld in the prohibition era as an anti-hero who despites authority and finds respectability suffocating. Although being a womanizer and a gangster, Tom is loyal to his mother and his male associates. Despite the disclaimer in he beginning of the film that claims it to “honestly depict an environment that exist today in a certain strata of American life, rather than glorify the hoodlum or the criminal”, The Public Enemy seems to glorify Tom’s criminal behaviors and high life style by depicting Tom in a sympathetic and yet realistic manner, which violates the Motion Picture Production Code of 1930. All the murder scenes, however, strictly abide by the code and happen off-screen.

Even though a crime film, the killings in The Public Enemy all happen off-screen. The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 states that "Brutal killings should not be presented in detail"(328), and the film sticks with this principle strictly. As the camera pans from Putty Nose (Murray Kinnell) who is playing the piano to Matt (Edward Woods) on the side, the audience imagine Tom's murder of Putty Nose from the stunned facial expression of Matt and the incongruous sound of the piano. Also, we see Tom angrily paying the stable man and walking into the barn, but the killing of the horse is not shown but inferred. Lastly, Tom's retaliation for Matt against his rival gang also happens off-screen, as the camera stays outside the building where the murder happens and we hear shots and screams of the wounded from inside.

Nevertheless, the film subverts the Code in other way...

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...ed"(326). While the sex part is only suggested, with Jane turning off the lights for Tom while walking towards his direction, the seduction part is more detailed. Jane puts the drunken Tom to bed, loosens his clothes, talks to him softly, pampers him like a mother, says "I want to do things for you, Tommy. You don't think I'm old, do you, Tommy? You like me, don't you, Tommy?" and kisses him. The reasoning behind this restriction is to uphold the sanctity of marriage and the home.

Even though Warner Brothers argues that they do not glorify the criminal, The Public Enemy appears to glamorize criminal behaviors such as bootlegging and high life style by depicting Tom, a gangster in a sympathetic and yet realistic manner, which violates the Motion Picture Production Code of 1930. The film, however, adheres the Code with all the murder scenes happening off-screen.