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Warners
Home Video keeps the classics coming to
DVD with the January 25 th release of
The Warners Gangster Collection, featuring
six of the great crime films – Raoul
Walsh's THE ROARING TWENTIES (1939) and
WHITE HEAT (1949), Michael Curtiz' ANGELS
WITH DIRTY FACES (1938), Mervyn LeRoy's
LITTLE CAESAR (1930), Archie Mayo's THE
PETRIFIED FOREST (1936), and William Wellman's
THE PUBLIC ENEMY (1931).
I'll
have more details about the set next month,
but the release is already getting buffs
excited with the inclusion of additional
footage to THE PUBLIC ENEMY, scenes deleted
when the movie was re-released after the
advent of the Production Code. In the
meantime, here's a chapter on the film
from my upcoming study of director William
“Wild Bill” Wellman:
THE
PUBLIC ENEMY (1931)
Warner
Brothers-Vitaphone. Copyright: April 4,
1931. New York Premiere: April 23, 1931
at the Strand. Re-released 1954. 83 minutes.
Original Running Time: 96 minutes.
Executive
Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck. Produced by
Hal B. Wallis. DIRECTED BY WILLIAM A.
WELLMAN. Adaptation and Dialogue: Harvey
Thew. Based on the story "Beer and
Blood: The Story of a Couple o' Wrong
Guys" by Kubec Glasmon and John Bright.
Photography: Dev Jennings. Camera Crew:
Willard Van Enger, William Schurr, Frank
Kesson, Irving Glassberg, Bill Reinhold,
Al Roberts, Sid Wagner, Harry Underwood,
Nelson Larrabee. Editor: Edward M. McDermott.
Art Director: Max Parker. Assistant Directors:
Frank Shaw, Dolph Zimmer. Second Assistant
Director: Louis Marlowe. Production Manager:
William Koenig. Location Manager: W.L.
Guthrie. Costumes: Earl Luick, Edward
Stevenson. Makeup: Perc Westmore. Props:
Robert Priestley. Stills: Scotty Welbourne.
Sound (Vitaphone): Oliver S. Garretson.
Sound Crew: Alf Burton, J. Thompson, Albin.
Technical Adviser: Clem Peoples. Production
Crew: Rule, Whitmore, Newitt, Dillingham.
Casting: Rufus LeMaire. Vitaphone Orchestra
Conducted by David Mendoza. Theme, "I'm
Forever Blowing Bubbles," words by
Jean Kenbrovin (pseudonym for James Kendis,
James Brockman, Nat Vincent), music by
William Kellette. Additional Theme, "Toot
Toot Tootsie." Song, "Hesitation
Blues" (traditional), sung by Murray
Kinnell. British Title: ENEMY OF THE PUBLIC.
French Title: L'ENNEMI PUBLIC.
Cast
: James Cagney (Tom Powers), Jean
Harlow (Gwen Allen), Eddie Woods (Matt
Doyle), Joan Blondell (Mamie), Donald
Cook (Mike Powers), Leslie Fenton (Samuel
"Nails" Nathan), Beryl Mercer
(Ma Powers), Robert Emmett O'Connor (Paddy
Ryan), Murray Kinnell (Putty Nose), Mae
Clarke (Kitty), Rita Flynn (Molly Doyle),
Snitz Edwards (Hack Miller), Ben Hendricks,
Jr. (Bugs Moran), Frank Coghlan Jr. (Tommy
as a boy), Frankie Darro (Matt as a boy),
Ben Hendricks III (Bugs as a boy), Robert
E. Homans (Officer Pat Burke), Dorothy
Gee (Nails' Girl), Purnell Pratt (Officer
Powers), Lee Phelps (Steve the Bartender),
Mia Marvin (Jane), Clark Burroughs (Dutch),
Adele Watson (Mrs. Doyle), Ronald Shannon
(Limpy Larry), Marty O'Grady (Limpy as
a boy), Helen Parrish, Dorothy Gray, Nancie
Price (Little Girls), George Daly (Machine-Gunner),
Eddie Kane (Joe, the head-waiter), Charles
Sullivan (Mug), William H. Strauss (Pawnbroker),
Frank Austin (Burns Hood), Sam McDaniel
(Black Headwaiter), Landers Stevens (Doctor),
Bob Reeves (Poolroom Customer), Douglas
Gerrard (Assistant Tailor), Russ Powell
(Bartender), Harvey Parry (Stunts).
Production
: Kubec Glasmon and John Bright submitted
their story "Beer and Blood"
to Warners on November 1, 1930; the studio
bought the property on December 1 for
$2,800. Production was announced on December
8, with Archie Mayo named as director.
In mid-January, 1931, Wellman, who was
scheduled to make Night Nurse ,
persuaded Zanuck to postpone that film
and assign him to The Public Enemy
first; Mayo was re-assigned to Bought
. At the suggestion of John Monk Saunders,
the project's title was changed from Beer
and Blood to The Public Enemy
, although an article in Motion
Picture Herald 1-17-31) credits Jack
Warner with taking the title from a Chicago
newspaper headline. The final script was
dated January 18, 1931.
Edward Woods was originally cast as Tom
Powers, with James Cagney as Matt Doyle;
Louise Brooks was cast as Gwen, Una Merkel
as Mamie, James Clary as Mike Powers,
Roberta Gregory as Molly, William House
as Paddy Ryan, and Clark Burroughs as
Bugs. Brooks was replaced by Jean Harlow,
borrowed from Howard Hughes? Caddo Company
at $1,000 per week; Joan Blondell substituted
for Merkel; Clary was replaced by Donald
Cook; Gregory by Rita Flynn; House by
Robert Emmett O'Connor; and Burroughs'
role was changed to Dutch. Records in
the Warner Brothers Archive at USC confirm
that Cagney and Woods switched roles prior
to shooting.
The
film was in production from January 25,
1931, through February 25, 1931; introductory
cast titles were shot February 26, 1931
(Mae Clarke did not show up for this shoot).
The movie was filmed at Warners Burbank
Studio, Warners Sunset Studio, Vitagraph
Studio (hospital scenes), downtown Los
Angeles (kids' houses), Alameda Street
(U.S. Government warehouse), Wilshire
and LaBrea (Cagney picks up Harlow; running
auto scenes), May Company Department Store
(Coghlan and Darro in department store).
The total direct cost of the picture was
$123,050; Wellman later told Cagney the
picture came in at $151,000. According
to the daily production reports, Wellman
shot a large portion of the film in one
or two takes.
In
1935, MGM produced Raoul Walsh's Public
Enemy No. 2 , but Warners prevailed
upon the MPAA to make them change the
title, and the film was released as Baby
Face Harrington . Two years later,
MGM produced Wellman's script Another
Public Enemy ; again, Warners protested,
and MGM changed the title to The Last
Gangster . In 1942, Republic produced
Friendly Enemies , but was unable
to effect a change in title. In 1953,
New York producer George F. Foley contemplated
production of Public Enemy #1
but was warned off use of the title by
Warners.
In
1958, Warners considered a TV series to
be called Public Enemy . A pilot
called Top of the World was produced,
but did not sell to the networks. It was
released theatrically in England in April
1959 as Law vs. Gangster , with
a teleplay by Howard Browne, based on
the Ivan Goff-Ben Roberts screenplay for
Raoul Walsh's White Heat (1949)
and also containing elements from the
screenplay of The Public Enemy
In the United States, it ran as an
episode of the TV series Bourbon Street
Beat called "Inside Man."
Clips from The Public Enemy appears
in Mervyn LeRoy's Three on a Match
(1932), Richard Schickel's The
Men Who Made the Movies: William Wellman
(1973) and Chuck Workman's Precious
Images (1986). A Broadway marquee
for the 1954 re-release can be glimpsed
in Stanley Kubrick's Killer's Kiss
(1955). The Public Enemy
was also one of the first films in the
permanent collection of The Museum of
Modern Art. Kenneth Branagh wrote a play
called Public Enemy about an Irish
youth in Belfast during the 1970's who
is obsessed with the movie; it was announced
for film production in 1995 with Branagh
directing.
Awards
: Academy Award nomination for Best
Original Motion Picture Story (Glasmon
and Bright).
Reviews
: "There is, about The Public
Enemy , a quality of grim directness,
Zolaesque power, and chilling credibility
which makes it far more real and infinitely
more impressive than the run of gangster
films ... certainly it is the most ruthless,
unsentimental appraisal of the meanness
of a petty killer that the cinema has
yet devised" (Richard Watts Jr.,
New York Herald Tribune , 4-24-31);
"Roughest, toughest and best of the
gang films to date ... Maybe Wellman's
still sore because they wouldn't let him
do his balloon corps picture, and so the
resultant venom went into this effort"
(Sid., Variety , 4-29-31); also,
New York Times (4-24-31, 5-3-31);
National Board of Review Magazine
(5-31); Life (5-22-31).
Notes
: The Public Enemy endures
as a crime genre milestone, with James
Cagney in one of the cinema's virtuoso
performances as psycho killer Tom Powers.
Cagney was originally set to play Powers'
pal Matt Doyle, a supporting part as in
Other Men's Women , with Eddie
Woods in the starring role. Contrary to
many published stories, the casting change
was made before filming commenced, and
a special chemistry emerged between Cagney
and Wellman.
Wellman
shot The Public Enemy as a series
of short, powerful vignettes, and the
picture is drenched in the realism that
is central to his style. There is, for
example, a marvelous depiction of the
night before Prohibition, as masses of
people try to hoard as much liquor as
possible. A florist truck is emptied of
its dozens of flowers and loaded with
booze, and a baby carriage full of whiskey
bottles is wheeled down the street.
Reams
have been written on The Public Enemy
, Wellman's best known film. Highlights
include the night-time robbery of a fur
company; the murder of the "dirty
no good yellow-bellied stool" Putty
Nose as he plays "Hesitation Blues"
on the piano; and Cagney's and Woods'
rapid rise in underworld, like criminal
Horatio Algers. They take the advice of
Paddy Ryan (Robert Emmett O'Connor, a
familiar face in Wellman's films), who
tells them, "You gotta have friends,"
a favorite Wellman message.
Two
scenes are especially celebrated in film
history. Tired of mistress Mae Clarke,
Cagney sits down to breakfast. She wishes
that he would treat her better. "I
wish you was a wishin' well," snarls
Cagney, "so's I could tie ya to a
bucket and sink ya!" and smashes
her in the face with a grapefruit half.
It is a startling moment that lasts only
a few seconds on screen, but had a long-ranging
influence on Cagney's career (the actor
would spoof the scene in Mervyn LeRoy's
1933 Hard to Handle playing an
entrepreneur who at one point tries to
promote grapefruits into a national fad).
In later years, Zanuck took credit for
the grapefruit sequence, but Cagney wrote
that Bright and Glasmon were inspired
by real-life gangster Hymie Weiss who
threw an omelette in his moll's face.
In the script, he was to throw the grapefruit,
but unbeknownst to Mae Clarke, Wellman
instructed Cagney to grind it in her face,
something that Wellman said he was tempted
to do to his soon-to-be ex-wife, Marjorie
Crawford, at the breakfast table.
Later,
in one of the grimmest and most powerful
scenes in American cinema, Cagney's mother
and brother prepare for his arrival from
the hospital. The brother plays "I'm
Forever Blowing Bubbles" on the Victrola,
while the mother whistles away upstairs
as she readies the room for her "baby."
There is a knock at the door, the sound
of a car screeching away, and the brother
opens the door. Cagney's corpse, shrouded
like a mummy, falls to the floor as the
phonograph needle reaches the conclusion
of the song, and the picture ends.
For
all of Wellman's scintillating technique,
The Public Enemy belongs to Cagney,
and the actor dominates the film. Wellman
had an extraordinary propensity for turning
new talent into screen stars, and as he
had with Gary Cooper in Wings ,
he gave Cagney a formula that made him
an international star. Cagney electrifies
the screen with his aggressive performance
as the quintessential tough guy. His acting
is enlivened by the way he carried himself,
the way he tilted his hat, and his little
dance of joy after making a date with
Jean Harlow.
Despite
his character's undeniable sadism and
psychopathic tendencies, Cagney endeared
himself to the audience, becoming, in
effect, the first American anti-hero.
With The Public Enemy , Wellman
hit his dramatic stride and demonstrated
the complete mastery of his craft. The
fluid camera, tight pace, and imaginative
use of sound, combined with the documentary-like
realism and unforgettable Cagney performance,
make The Public Enemy a classic
American picture.
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