The Gangster Film and the American Dream Part II
The original version of Scarface faced delays in release while director Howard Hakws had to edit and reshoot certain scenes in order to make sure his gangster “hero’ Tony Camonte was dealt a more sufficient payback for his criminal success. Although it would certainly be interesting to see what the original cut looked like, the truth is that even with the editing Paul Muni’s performance rises to the same delirious heights of enthusiastic glee over amoral behavior that made Al Pacino’s character in the remake of this movie an icon for disaffected black youth today. The intention of the call for cuts may have been to make him less attractive in the eyes of the public, but that intention was quite obviously not met.
The Public Enemy was another gangster movie that featured a disclaimer. This time the message sent to moviegoers stated the intention baldly. The film had no desire to glorify the gangster, but rather was only interested in depicting the environment which gives rise to gangsterism. This depiction of a specific locus of American society was not merely metaphoric: the camera literally crosses over railroad tracks to the wrong side of those tracks. More so than another gangster film of its time, The Public Enemy questions the entire concept of The American Dream; that notion that everybody in America has access to becoming successful, regardless of which part of the strata of America society into which they were born. The movie does much than just hint that there might not really be that much of a distinction existing between acquisition of wealth by rich capitalists and acquisition of wealth through crime.
The great James Cagney plays the title character and he is clearly dilineated as the Other; apart from yet somehow integral to the American system. Underlining his Otherness as the Public Enemy are his unpatriotic derision of enlisting to fight for America in WWI and his utter contempt for the educational ambitions of his brother. Cagney’s character Tommy stands in direct opposition to all that is perceived as admirable about America. In fact, Tommy is set up in such a way as to personify one of the problems facing American society. Suspecting that the American Dream can be unraveled to be revealed as a web of lies, Tommy rejects every aspect of it.
Tommy did grow up on the wrong side of the tracks, but even still he has enough street smarts and innate intelligence to comprehend that all the patriotism, education and hard work in the world won’t result in respect, dames, mansions and penthouses. Contrary to its disclaim, this story isn’t being offered merely as a depiction of an environment; it is being told to provide necessary insight into what awaits those who choose this life: Refusal to comply with all aspects of the American ideology results in finding oneself on the road to ruin where not even the police can save you.
The tough, gritty and admirable performances of actors like Cagney, Muni and Edgar G. Robinson were one thing that could not be controlled through the use of disclaimers or judicious editing, and their kinetic acting styles may have done much to undermine the good intentions of those disclaimers and edits. Something else needed to be done to ensure that an American public becoming increasingly and dangerously enthralled by the exploits of real-life gangsters like Capone, Bonnie & Clyde, and John Dillinger was suitably restrained within the darkened movie palaces of the 30s. Although gangster movies were exciting enough by themselves to virtually assure the genre would have been a success regardless, it certainly did not hurt that their introduction coincided with the Great Depression and the emergence of legendary gangsters and bank robbers that the media turned into modern day folk heroes ala Robin Hood. Although it is questionable whether Ma Barker or Machine Gun Kelly ever actually gave money to the poor, there is no question that in the much of the public’s mind the money they were stealing from banks definitely belonged to the rich. After all, the poor had no money in the banks during the Depression.
At least, that’s how it seemed. Dillinger especially, even more so than Capone, captured a hold on the public’s fascination. (Dillinger’s legendary status is all the more surprising considering that his crime spree lasted just slightly more than one year!) Dillinger’s exploits and personality so captured the public’s fancy that shortly after his violent shooting death outside a cinema-ironically after watching a film about gangsters-Will Hays, the head of Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, instituted a ban on gangster films. The moratorium was put in place due to fears about romanticizing gangsters. At least that was the official story, but there may be another, less obvious, reason for the ban; the concern that the genuinely exciting characters being portrayed in gangster films had engendered within the members of certain American subcultures a willingness to take a chance on an early and violent death in exchange for an authentic possibility of tasting the sweet wine of American success.
The Great Depression of the 1930s didn’t just help cement the popularity of the gangster genre, it also revealed to many that soft underbelly of the American Dream that Tom Powers saw through in Public Enemy. If it was difficult for the son of a poor kid-especially an inner city son of a European immigrant-to work his way up the ladder to success during the roaring twenties, then it was all but impossible to do by the time Dillinger went to a Clark Gable movie with a woman who liked to be noticed for her apparel. Powers turned his back on all the lessons being force-fed him about making it in America and ended up dead. But at least he had a good time before then. All that America had to offer during the Depression was hope; criminal activity put food on the plate and clothes on your back. Certainly, the moratorium and crackdown was intended to halt the romantic view of mobsters built up by the combination of dashing real-life figures and even more exhilarating big-screen counterparts, but was James Cagney’s performance in Public Enemy so overwhelming that it undercut the message of the film?
Apparently so, because as part of the moratorium both that movie and Little Caesar were banned from public view. In fact, neither film would be exhibited again until the 1950s. And while one may have little trouble making the argument that Cagney’s Tom Powers was the stuff of emulation, Edward G. Robinson’s Rico Bandello poses a problem. James Cagney is good-looking, if in a tough kind of way; Robinson was never a matinee idol. Tom Powers is a rebel whose insistence on going his own way has undeniably admirable qualities; Rico Bandello is nothing but an ugly thug. The public enemy beds Mae Clark and Jean Harlow; Little Caesar seems vaguely homosexual. Both films were banned under the moratorium with the implicit reasoning that they romanticized the gangster. While both actors certainly burn indelibly on the screen, only James Cagney succeeds in making the life of gangster seem romantic. To make a modern comparison, Cagney’s Tom Powers is a romantic vision of a gangster like Brando’s Vito Corleone, while Robinson’s Rico Bandello is a more realistic vision of a gangster along the lines of Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill. The difference? After watching Public Enemy or The Godfather it would not be surprising to walk out of the theater wanting to be like them; after watching Little Caesar or Goodfellas it would be difficult to justify wanting to live those lives. For the remainder of the Depression, the FBI would continue its crackdown on the real gangsters while all romantic and exciting portrayals of gangsters by big stars on the silver screen practically disappeared.
