Real Lessons from Real Life

It is how you earned it!

Public Enemy (1931)

The first time I watched James Cagney was when RTM screened his 1942 'Yankee Doodle Dandy'. It narrated the biography of a particular George M. Cohen, an American musical composer who in his later part of his life remained unknown. I vividly remember a scene where he stood incognito amongst the crowd looking at the band march by to the enthusiastic youngsters singing to the tune. Little did the crowd know who was standing amongst them - the composer of the song, until he tells them his life story! That was another movie...

Well, this 1931 action movie is one of the early action movies which talks about the glamorous life of gangland and its downside too. From the outset, the director had warns viewers that the film does not glamorise hoodlums. Even though proclaiming to be of the contrary, the story was supposedly based on lifetimes of many baddies of that era.

The story starts in 1909 with the tale of two young boys grow up doing pranks and soon graduating to bigger crimes in life. Being in the Prohibition Era and all, they get drafted into smuggling booze and start enjoying the high life. Everything has a price, and it costs dearly.

In between comes a family, a doting mother and a devoted brother who follows the virtuous road.

An interesting trivia that developed during filming is that they director decided to switch the main two lead actors.

The child actors who represent them were not switched, so you have the young artists with mannerisms and physique of the other at childhood.

Another trivia is the famous grapefruit scene. It is supposed to mimic a gangster who threw an omelette at his girlfriend at the breakfast table. In this film, the scene was unrehearsed and gave the actress a shock. It was meant to be that way!

A memorable line from the flick, when two brothers are arguing over the money that Tom (the gangster brother, James Cagney) that he gives their mother. Mike, the elder one is a war veteran of WW1, is sceptical of the origin of Tom's wealth that is not from politics as he claimed but from the bootleg business. His success is from beer and blood. Tom, ridiculing his soldier brother says, "Your hands ain't so clean. You killed and liked it. You didn't get them medals for holding hands with them Germans."

Real lessons from reel

The path to glory is not paved with diamonds. To reach the pinnacle of your ambition, one cannot 'Mr Nice Guy' all the way. The disrespectful behaviour is all forgotten when one reaches his goal, especially if his path is deemed acceptable by society. The society would justify his action, albeit nefarious, as beneficial to greater good of the species. The 'dirty' actions done to reach the goal can be 'sanitised' by giving what seems like altruistic philanthropy alms back to society. Everything is fair and square?