THE PUBLIC ENEMY (1931, Warner Bros.)
dir. William A. Wellman; starring James Cagney, Edward Woods, Jean Harlow
A much, much shorter write-up this time around. Watching Enemy today served a couple purposes, neither of which require a gargantuan, self-indulgent essay like the one I coughed up last night. One purpose was simply that this is a hugely famous film I’d never seen. The other is that it serves as a distinctly un-noir approach to crime and the city, an interesting precursor and contrast to the style that dominates most of the films on my list. We’ll touch on both of these in this brief write-up.
So yes, obviously, The Public Enemy is a huge deal, and it is certainly easy to see why. Not only is it a great exemplar of the kind of moviemaking the studios were trading in during the early 30’s, it’s actually a pretty good movie at the same time. No wonder Cagney was pigeon-holed as the tough guy for the rest of his career; he sells the shit out of it. That being said, it is hard not to see the film as pretty quaint, all things considered, despite pre-dating the Hays Code. I will admit, though, that my feeling on this is pretty strongly influenced by the inclusion of the written prologue and epilogue that appear as bookends to the film, warning viewers that this film does not “glorify the hoodlum or criminal,” and that “’the public enemy’ is not a man, nor is it a character – it is a problem that sooner or later WE, the public, must solve.” With these pedantic incursions, it gets tough to not watch this as an outdated morality tale.
But! If we can shed that, we see some great stuff. Not just great gangster stuff, but some actual elements that will be instrumental to the storytelling basics of noir. Despite having no visual similarities to the noir style, Enemy is very concerned with gender and class, specifically with men bonding together in opposition to women and the poor bonding together in opposition to the rich. Enemy is an overwhelmingly male movie, from start to finish. Men trust men and discard women. Wisdom and confidence are male enterprises. Even as children in the opening of the film, we see Tom chide his friend, “that’s what you get for fooling with women.” We do, however, see a bit of an ancestor to the full-fledged femme fatale in Jean Harlow. Like Peter Lorre in Stranger on the Third Floor, Harlow is hugely important in the film but has very little actual screentime: three scenes, one of which she does not speak during, 17 minutes from entrance to exit, all told. However, like Lorre, she sticks in the mind. Unlike the molls that come and go in this film, she is not impressed by Tom, does not fear him or simper to him. She speaks intelligently, and has that look in her eyes that we will see in noir starlets for years to come. She is sultry, maybe not dangerous in the conventional sense, but dangerous to the idea that men hold the power in this world. In her final scene, we watch as she turns Cagney’s tough guy into a stuttering, emotional boy, holding him close to her in confidence. It is marvelous to watch.
There is also a strong sense of, to appropriate a modern phrase, “the two Americas.” Cagney’s Tom Powers sneers at his brother throughout the film, the stuck up firstborn who goes to school, goes to work, goes to war. This is not the world that the heroes of Enemy live in, and it will not be the world of noir. Perhaps the strongest narrative similarity in terms of class politics between Enemy and classic noir is the story of Thug Made Fancy. Tom gets fitted for a suit, goes to fine danceclubs, becomes the sophisticated savage. This we will see time and again in noir films like Gilda, the street smart wiseguy who comes into money but still lives in that “other” America, the one that runs on his rules.
On the other hand, though, the differences outweigh the similarities here. The camerawork still mostly looks like it could be a stageplay. Prop chairs break with startling ease and artificiality. Tough guys talk in that Cagney machine-gun diction, hamming up the 30’s acting. It’s all marvelous, but it ain’t noir.
I may decide down the line to scrap a gangster movie from my list and toss in some German expressionism, just to take a different look at the genres feeding into early noir. We’ll play it by ear.
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