The Public Enemy

The Public Enemy

1931: William A. Wellman, director; starring James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Joan Blondell, Edward Woods. An early Warner Bros. Prohibition-era gangster flick based on the book Beer and Blood, which gives you an idea of the subject matter. Pre-Hayes Code, the movie is a brutal indictment of bootleggers and their amoral lifestyles; it may have contributed to the wave of public aversion to Prohibition and the gangsters that the law made rich through illegal alcohol sales.