The mobster epic that influenced Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘The Godfather’
Ask a random punter on the street what the greatest movie of all time is, and chances are high that they’ll say The Godfather. Based on the novel by Mario Puzo, this tale of ambition, betrayal, greed, and glory centred around the Corleone crime family has become synonymous with cinematic greatness. It’s actually getting to the point where it’s becoming a cliché to talk about how great it is, which in itself is testament to its quality.
Director Francis Ford Coppola might have set many of the conventions surrounding ‘mob’ movies, but he was far from the first person to make a film about organised crime. Brian De Palma’s version of Scarface might have come out after The Godfather, but Howard Hawks’ original predates it by 40 years. Other 1930s gangster flicks like Little Caesar and Invisible Stripes also set an early tone, but one movie from the era had a bigger impact on Coppola’s work than all of the others combined.
In 1931, Warner Bros. studios released The Public Enemy, a crime drama starring James Cagney and Jean Harlow. It was directed by William A. Wellman, working with a script based on an unpublished novel penned by two former Chicago-based journalists. John Bright and Kubec Glasmon had first-hand experience of some of Al Capone’s most famous crimes, so they decided to try and turn real-life tragedy into fictional gold. The end result was a movie that has stood the test of time – and then some.
The story follows two young boys named Tom (Cagney) and Matt (Edward Woods), as they grow up in early 20th-century Chicago. As they get older, the friends become involved in serious mob business, especially when prohibition kicks in. The film was incredibly violent for the time – the ultra-moralistic Hays code was still in effect – and audiences couldn’t believe what Wellman and his cast had gotten away with. Still, it had gotten the ball rolling on the gangster movie genre, and that ball wasn’t going to stop for anyone.
As well as the more obvious shared DNA between the two, The Public Enemy and The Godfather have several other, smaller details in common. There’s a strong family dynamic in both films, as Tom and his brother Mike (Donald Cook) fight over the former’s ill-got gains. In the same way that the Five Families go to war in Coppola’s film, Wellman pits Tom’s gang against another organisation, one that ultimately brings him down. There’s even a scene in The Public Enemy set the night before a wedding.
For all the scenes it inspired in The Godfather, many of the moments in The Public Enemy stand on their own merit. The scene in which Tom angrily smashes half a grapefruit into the face of his girlfriend (Mae Clarke) has been ripped off and parodied just about everywhere, from The Simpsons to One, Two, Three, a 1960s comedy starring none other than James Cagney.
“Anyone searching for the headwaters confluence of organised crime and the American family, as portrayed in Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather trilogy… shouldn’t overlook this explosive 1931 film,” writes Jud Cost of Magnet magazine. It might be significantly less famous than its younger counterpart, but The Public Enemy laid the foundations for pretty much every other gangster film that followed. Its heady mixture of violence, interpersonal drama, and the glamourisation of the criminal underbelly was, aptly, an offer audiences simply couldn’t refuse.
