- Actors: James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Edward Woods, Joan Blondell, Donald Cook
- Directors: William A. Wellman
- Writers: Harvey F. Thew, John Bright, Kubec Glasmon
- Producers: Darryl F. Zanuck
- Language English
- Classification: PG
- Studio: Warner
- VHS Release Date: 6 Mar 2000
- Run Time: 83 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B00004CJSL
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 893 in Video (See Top 100 in Video)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:VHS Tape
This movie is nearly 70 years old!!Just think about that for a second.When the word timeless was invented it was ,made to be used with works of art like this.Basically a morality tale of a life of crime "The Public Enemy" shows us Tom Powers a young boy from Chicago and the events leading up to his life of crime.Cagney's Tom Powers is a vicious low life thug,but again he loves his mama!Tom Power really has no redemming features, he seeks revenge when Putty Nose a slimely lowlife when Putty crosses him.Doesn't take any crap from the owners of the speakeasys when they don't pay up on time or accept his orders.He squashes a grapefruit into his girlfriends face when she suggest that he doesn't like her anymore(a Cagney improvisation again, the scene was already shot but Cagney asked Mae Clarke to come back and try it with the grapefruit being squashed in her face,both were surprised to find the second shot ending up in the finished film.Cagney would forever be offered grapefruit when he went into restraunts after the film.)Even though Tom is a low-life Cagney plays him so well that you can't but end up loving him in the end.This film rocketed Cagney into the limelight, the depression era crowd loved him as a man who would stand up for himself and not be broken by the system.Only one other gangster movie of this era can match "The Public Enemy" and thats "Scarface"(not the Al Pacino version),anothe interesting fact is that the machine gun attack on Cagney and his best friend Matt Doyle actually used real machine gun bullets!! The chunks of the building that are seen flying out when the bullets hit it was real!!None of your nambypamby special Matix effects here!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Public Enemy is a white-hot film that is as instense as any recent Hollywood crime thriller. This is in no doubt due to James Cagney charismatic riviting performance, he dominates every scene and always throws you out with an unexpected action or gesture as was shown with the famous grapefruit scene.
In terms of performances that grab you and won't let you go like this one, of today's actors, only Ray Loitta and Robert De Niro are capable doing this.
I also feel that what made this film great was what was not shown.
You never saw James Cagney inside the building having a shootout with half a dozen of the rival gang or him being tortured at the end, it was what was implied that made it all that more powerful.
This may have been made in 1931 but it as just as fresh and exciting as anything made today.
Tremendous!!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
A must own for film freaks and lovers of great films.
James Cagney in one of his top 3 films. A film that stands even today. Cagney is one of Hollywood's greatest actors ever and this stunning performance is worth the film alone. Superb acting in a superb film. Just see it an enjoy...
James Cagney in one of his top 3 films. A film that stands even today. Cagney is one of Hollywood's greatest actors ever and this stunning performance is worth the film alone. Superb acting in a superb film. Just see it an enjoy...
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
One of Cagney's great movies
The Public Enemy is dated, a little corny, with dialogue that now seems full of cliches...one of those movies that some who disdain "old" movies might point to as how over-rated... Read more
Published on 24 Dec 2007 by C. O. DeRiemer
What a film...
You can't buy this great film separately on region 2, so this is the only alternative. Amazingly this film came out the same year as 'Little Ceasar'. Read more
Published on 7 Aug 2007 by S J Buck
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