So said by legendary tough-guy James Cagney as Tom Powers in The Public Enemy.
Lileks has a post up right now with a ton of great stills from The Public Enemy (including the improvised grapefruit-in-face scene) and here’s some of his commentary:
Tough, hard, smart, with some amazing camera work – the opening has a long tracking shot that seems to belong to a film from 30 years later.
About that grapefruit moment:
Cagney improvised the scene. You want to see ugly emotion? Ugly contempt unmasked, and raw? Watch that grapefruit scene – especially his face, as he jams it into her cheek. (Lileks has posted a still of that moment.) It’s startling no matter how many times you see it. It’s not an “actor-ish” moment. It’s real. It’s just a grapefruit, but in its way it is one of the most violent scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie. If you think I’m exaggerating, then you obviously haven’t seen the film. The funny thing is: she is kind of whiny, and you think, in the scene preceding: “Damn, I wish she would stop her whining, she’s so annoying.” And then … SMUSH. Cagney shuts her up.
And I agree with Lileks’ assessment of Harlow in this picture (who randomly strolls around in white silky GOWNS in her dingy apartment … it’s hilarious, it makes no sense) – Lileks writes:
Shes horrible in this movie, incidentally. In the featurette the ubiquitous Scorcese comments on her very unusual line reading, as if he possibly cant bring himself to say how bad she is. What I love about this screen grab is the way the world looks so new, so hard. The sidewalk has been remade with those paving stones that recede into the distance. The crowds all look black and white and grey. Its a world in which the possibility of color has been considered, and rejected on aesthetic reasons.
