The Public Enemy

by Anna Pulley

The “public enemy” or gangster in the 1930s was an elusive beast—a hero for some, and an illustration of what happens to those who don’t uphold the law for others.  Marked by stylish consumption, the gangster is an ambiguously pivotal character in William A. Wellman’s 1931 film The Public Enemy and encompasses many of the moral questions posed by society about the enemy at large.  Questions of appearances, contested space, and consumerism are embedded in the characters, most notably in Tom Powers (James Cagney), whose name itself is an emblem of masculinity that he struggles to uphold in both his public and private spheres.

Set in the free-for-all prohibition era, small time thugs and best friends Tom and Matt (Edward Woods) attempt to make their way in the world of hardened criminals and feuding ethnic gang wars. There’s an amazing scene near the end of the film that starts off with Tom and his gang confined in the gang’s headquarters to protect them from the looming death outside. Driven out by a sexually aggressive female (the incredibly seductive Jean Harlow), Tom is unable to remain inside and this ironically results in the death of his best friend Matt. The scene showed the two friends talking through the window of their assassins, a bit of dramatic irony that allows viewers to see what happens before the characters do.  From very early in the film, Tom is portrayed as street-wise, finding more comfort in the urban milieu than in the home.  Some examples of this are when both his scary Irish cop father and his austerely violent older brother pummel him repeatedly when he is at home.  The traditional hierarchy and oppression of Tom’s domestic life practically set him up to rebel against it from an early age.  Another example of Tom’s unease with spatial confinement is in the low-key chiaroscuro lighting of the fur factory, where he panics and shoots a stuffed bear.  Once out of the factory however, he and Matt slide nimbly down drainpipes and into night’s protective cloak.

Urban space is often shown to be an important element of modernity, as well as cultural experiences of mobility and technology and Public Enemy is no exception. Tom’s stylish wardrobe allows him the economic mobility of blurring class distinctions, which is prevalent in the gun store scene where the naïve clerk gives Tom two guns that Tom turns around and uses to rob him. The fact that gangsters and businessmen dress similarly is a critique on capitalist society—the upstanding citizen and the streetwise criminal are seen as equally voracious and the polish of modern consumption has the illusion of respectability, of moral character. The dilemma of the self-made man versus the legitimate businessman was hard to define in the 30s, as identity and status were no longer associated with reputation but with possessions, despite the hard times of the Depression. Because possessions conveyed a sense of change, the gangster was the embodiment of personal fulfillment. Tom’s car is an integral prop in this way, as it represents status, wealth, and his ability to patrol the streets he is so familiar with. 

Tom represents the opposing worlds of elite society and the hardened criminal, and he is seen as both the protagonist and antagonist of the film.  His redeeming qualities of ambition and loyalty to his mom and Matt make him a sympathetic character, but the tough guise and flaunted masculinity that parallel those traits are still troubling.  An example of his negative side is in his abuse of women, shoving grapefruit in Kitty’s (Mae Clark) face and slapping a woman earlier on in the film. This split personality becomes more complicated in the final scene shown in the clip where he falls into the gutter, murmuring “I aint so tough.”  The low-key lighting and mobile tracking of this scene as well as Tom’s fancy footwork make his destruction expressionistic, like a dance, and the viewer finally gets a sense of Tom’s vulnerability.  The streets no longer offer him protection, as the rain demonstrates, and the intensity of the sounds (the glass shattering, thunder, police whistles, etc.) further the struggle Tom has with being both the ruthless gangster and the loyal friend. 

In the end, Tom becomes an example of what happens to those who disobey the law, but his characterization is much more rich than that of the typical gangster.  Tom is a social construction, created by the very ideals of a society who rejects him and wishes he would merely disappear.  In this respect, the “public enemy” represents America’s conflicting attitudes towards what is societally imposed or constructed.  Tom’s characterization is a culmination of the ideologies of the 1920s and 30s, therefore labeling him as the “enemy” is self-referential, and punishing him hypocritical.  Tom Powers is a product of the society he is rebelling against.