" 'G' Men" vs "The Public Enemy"

These aren't "chick flicks". I would never watch gangster movies growing up. At 76, and a TCM junkie, I finally am watching G Men. Even though these movies were set in Chicago or New York, the subjects in them are like a cancer on society. And have metastasized to Washington DC. (and Florida).and our gullible public has historically obsessed over, admired and fantasized being them. Maybe because they are up on the screen? Probably why TSF is a member of the Screen Actors Guild. And there is a hell of a lot of gunfire in G Men. And the G men aren't allowed to carry guns. So I want to turn it off. And I guess guys want to turn up the volume.

'G' Men (1935)

James Cagney helped jump-start the gangster genre as The Public Enemy. Outcries against movies that glorified underworld criminals put Cagney on the side of the law in 'G' Men.

It's the early days of the F.B.I. - federal agents working for the Department of Justice. Though they have limited powers - they don't carry weapons and have to get local police approval for arrests - that doesn't stop fresh Law School grad Eddie Buchanan from joining up, and he encourages his former roommate James "Brick" Davis (James Cagney) to do so as well. Davis, having completed law school, wants to be an honest lawyer, not a shyster, despite his ties to mobster boss McKay. He's intent on doing so, until Buchanan is gunned down trying to arrest career criminal Danny Leggett. Davis soon joins the "G-Men" as they hunt down Leggett (soon-to-be Public Enemy Number One) and his cronies Collins and Durfee, who are engaged in a crime and murder spree from New York to the midwest.

The Public Enemy (1931)

An Irish-American street punk tries to make it big in the world of organized crime.