[Bullitt68]

In 1927, when Warner Brothers released The Jazz Singer, there was an insane uproar. Audiences were going crazy. . .Someone talking in a movie? And you can hear and understand them? BRILLIANT!

As soon as Warner Brothers released the film, they knew it was the beginning of a new era. Having a monopoly on talkies, they began the 1930's as the top studio. While in later years, Universal would become the home of the horror film and MGM would be the king of the musicals, Warner Brothers will always be the king of the gangster films, and in 1931, they released two titanic films: Little Caesar and The Public Enemy.

Both Little Caesar and The Public Enemy were fortunate to have wonderful directors, the director for the former being Mervyn LeRoy, who is the man behind such classics as I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, Random Harvest, Thirty Seconds over Tokyo, Mister Roberts (which would team him with the star of The Public Enemy, James Cagney), the 1956 horror film The Bad Seed (possibly the birth of the creepy little girl hallmark in horror films), and the 1959 James Stewart crime saga The FBI Story.

In 1931, though, he was no Fritz Lang. He had worked in both silent and sound films, but Little Caesar was his coming out party. Working with a screenplay adapted from William R. Burnett, LeRoy would turn out one of the best gangster films ever made. Along with having a great screenplay, LeRoy was also lucky to have Edward G. Robinson playing the title character, Caesar Enrico "Rico" Bandello, a.k.a. Little Caesar.

Robinson had acted in a few films prior to his role in Little Caesar, but never had he had the material he had here nor had he ever experienced the same kind of support. With a great screenplay, a great director, and a great cast, he was in a very enviable position, and out of it, he was able to turn in a legendary performance.

Rico, a.k.a. Little Caesar, is perhaps the scrappiest character to ever appear on the screen. Unquestionably the precursor to Joe Pesci's Tommy DeVito, Robinson had a field day with the scruffy Rico. Standing short in stature and having not much to his name, Rico had his eyes set on Chicago, and with his childhood friend Joe Massara, played here by Douglas Fairbanks Jr., headed out with the hopes of rising to the top of the underworld.

When Rico and Joe arrived in Chicago, they ended up traveling divergent paths, and while Rico's rise to prominence in the underworld is successful (all things considered) his friend doesn't come along for the ride. Joe always had the, in Rico's mind, crazy notion of returning to his dancing roots, and when he falls in love with a dancer named Olga, he wants nothing to do with Rico and his life of crime. Things come to a head when Rico finds himself having been betrayed by his friend, who called the cops on him. In what is no doubt one of the most iconic images in film, Rico moves towards Joe and Olga, the lovebirds who have just brought the police down on him, but much to his surprise (not to mention the surprise of his croney) Rico finds himself unable to pull the trigger.

Forced to flee following a shootout with the cops, Rico goes underground. Despite being one of the premier bootleggers, Rico himself has always stayed away from alcohol, but now, having hit rock bottom, he lives in a flophouse and is a dirty drunk. As he is wallowing in his own shame, he hears two men reading an interview in the day's paper with the chief detective, a man whom Rico has always bested. In the interview, he calls Rico a coward, and in a last-ditch attempt to restore his dignity, Rico calls him up and dares him to come get him.

Following a shootout, Rico is hit, and as he lies dying, utters the now famous, "Is this the end of Rico?"

The film is still today revered as one of the all-time great crime films, and it paved the way for subsequent crime/gangster films. Shortly after Little Caesar’s release in early 1931, Warner Brothers would release a second gangster film, this one also proving to be the coming out party for another young actor, this one named James Cagney.

Three months following the release of Little Caesar, Warners Brothers celebrated the coming of spring with another breath of fresh air, this one going by the name James Cagney.

While Edward G. may have come first, Cagney will forever be his superior in the crime genre. In fact, he may be the best period (he is in my eyes, that's for sure). Cagney is one of the most charismatic men to ever grace the screen, and he first took the world by storm as bootlegger Tom Powers in William Wellman's The Public Enemy.

When shooting began on the film, Cagney was originally playing the second lead, but after Wellman watched Cagney and then-lead Edward Woods, he decided to switch the two and make Cagney the lead. Undoubtedly one of the wisest decisions in film, Cagney went on to completely dominate the screen, forever immortalizing both himself and the film in the scene where he mashes a grapefruit into the face of his on-screen girlfriend, played by Mae Clarke.


The film is about two boyhood friends who start out getting hired by local crime boss Paddy Ryan, and the two rise out from that beginning to big shots in the bootlegging industry, especially Cagney, who proves to be as tough a customer as there ever was.

It's not all fun and games for Cagney's Tom Powers, though. At home, he cares for his loving mother while at the same time always at odds with his older brother. Mike Powers, unlike his younger brother Tom, makes an honest living, and he takes every opportunity to let Tom know it. Having come back from the war, Mike is as cynical as ever, and he hates to see his brother on top of the world with all of his blood money.

In the end, the "crime doesn't pay" message hits home hard when Cagney is bested by a rival gang. Easily one of the most powerful endings in film, Cagney is dropped off at his house, still in hospital bandages, dead. Mike, discovering the body of his younger brother, is tasked with having to break the news to his mother, who is out of her mind with joy at the prospect of her youngest son finally returning from the hospital.

These two films are hallmarks in the crime genre and the first of what is now known as the gangster film. Both Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney would have it rough trying to shed the tough guy images they created on the screen, and even though at the time they may have resented it, they are now and forever will be icons of the crime genre and will continue to live on as two of the best tough guys to ever appear in film.