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Two slum kids grow up to become bootleggers until the law catches up with them. Upon reading the script, director William A. Wellman talked Darryl Zanuck into letting him make the gangster film by promising that it would be "the toughest goddamn one of them all.” He delivered, thanks in part to a last minute casting switch that put James Cagney in the lead. Cagney's snarling performance and the sex and violence of the story set the genre standard for decades to come. Wellman claimed credit for one of the film’s most shocking scenes—when Cagney shoves a grapefruit into Mae Clarke’s face—citing tension in his third marriage as inspiration.
Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. Director: William A. Wellman. Screenwriter: Kubec Glasmon, John Bright. Based on an unpublished novel by John Bright and Kubec Glasmon. Cinematography: Dev Jennings. Editor: Edward M. McDermott. Cast: James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Edward Woods, Joan Blondell, Donald Cook. 35mm, b/w, 83 min.
