The Public Enemy (Enemies of the Public in the UK) is a 1931 American all-talking pre-Code gangster film produced and distributed by Warner Bros. The screenplay is based on an unpublished novel, Beer and Blood, by John Bright and Kubec Glasmon, two former newspapermen who had witnessed some of Al Capone's murderous gang rivalries in Chicago.
In 1998, The Public Enemy was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Plot[]
The film relates the story of a young man's rise in the criminal underworld in prohibition-era urban America.
Cast[]
- James Cagney
- Jean Harlow
- Edward Woods
- Donald Cook
- Joan Blondell
- Beryl Mercer
- Murray Kinnell
- Mae Clarke