The Public Enemy (William Wellman, 1931)

Mike Powers: Do you think I care if there was just beer in that keg? I know what's in it. I know what you've been doing all this time, how you got those clothes and those new cars… You murderers! There's not only beer in that jug. There's beer and blood - blood of men!

James Cagney and Jean Harlow star in this cornerstone gangster film which will influence the whole genre.
Tom Powers (James Cagney) and his brother Mike (Donald Cook) follow different ways from an early age. Mike, who will serve the country in the First World War, will have a daytime job and follow his studies in the evenings. Tom and his friend Matt Doyle (Edward Woods) are two young teenagers who are stepping into criminal life stealing small items. As they are getting into adulthood they become bootleggers in the prohibition era.
Their reckless life brings them wealth, fun and women as Kitty (Mae Clarke) or Gwen Allen (Jean Harlow). However Tom is getting tougher – in a famous scene he squeezes a grapefruit into Kitty’s face – and he is going the hard way. He has become an evil hoodlum who even executes a horse in revenge.
The bootlegging business turns into gangster war with Tom falling wounded in the gutter. It seems the suitable end of the film – which would be similar to other endings in later noir movies as in He ran all the way.
However Tom is taken to hospital and later he will “come back” home, an impressing scene with a following moral message…

Tom (stumbling wounded under the rain): I ain't so tough

Little Caesar (Mervyn LeRoy, 1931)

Caesar Enrico Bandello: Mother of Mercy! Is this the end of Rico?

These are the famous last words spoken in this milestone of gangster movies (the seeds of film noir had been planted).

Rico or “little Caesar” (Edward G Robinson) is a small-town gangster (the opening scene with a robbery at a gas station is one of the best moments of the movie). He ambitions to become a big racketeer: I could do all the things that fella does, and more, only I never got my chance. And when I get in a tight spot, I shoot my way out of it. Why sure. Shoot first and argue afterwards. You know, this game ain't for guys that's soft!

He decides to move east with his colleague Joe Massara (Douglas Fairbanks Jr). However Joe doesn’t want to follow Rico’s footsteps the crime league and his ambition is to become a professional dancer together with his loved Olga (Glenda Farrell).

Rico will continue his rise to become a big racketeer - a memorable scene is the killing of gang member Tony on the church stairs (it reminded me of Eddie Bartlett’s death in The Roaring Twenties). The will to have former colleague Joe by his side – seeking true loyalty - will lead to Rico’s downfall.

The rise and fall of Rico Bandello is narrated using the technique of early cinema (for example with the use of written “tableaux”). There are clear references to the Italian American world (as in the 1Club Palermo). Little Caesar became an iconic film and E.G. Robinson would also become one of the references in gangster film and later in noir movies.