MovieChat Forums > The Public Enemy (1931) Discussion > Mike Powers...

Mike Powers...

posted 17 years ago by mlevens1
7 replies | jump to latest

Donald Cook’s "Mike Powers" was such a one-dimensional character. The character was so ridiculous in his "convictions" - which is doing everything by the book, by the law all the time, every time. Never did he stop to ponder his actions, his beliefs and his motives. It was good vs. evil; absolutely no shades of gray. This was a very ineffective character.

An overgrown boy scout.

Donald Cook’s most effective scene was the last one in the movie. If only his character had some development written in the script he might be rather likable.

In 1938's Angels with Dirty Faces (which I think is a better film) Cagney plays a tough gangster, a crazy maniac really. Pat O’Brien plays Cagney’s boyhood friend who is now a priest at a local school for troubled youths. Cagney and O’Brien’s scenes together have a real sincerity. Both were once hoodlums – now one is a priest and the other running from the law. It's a remarkable flick.

[–] michael-hilton 16 years ago

I totally agree. Mike Powers was an early cinema's portrayal of a one-dimensional goody two-shoes, that had far too much moral high ground and self righteousness. But I guess that was the thing that made the contrast between him and tom more effective, as tom was to the other extreme which was a couldn't give a *beep* tough guy.

[–] shadejford 16 years ago

Well Mike Powers certainly isn't as dimensional as brother Tom, but Mike is not a total cipher. His best scenes are the ones in which he aggressively confronts Tom's criminal behavior and during the last half hour in which he and Tom finally reconcile. Mike punching Tom in that one scene and then throwing that beer barrel off the dinner table in a later scene are powerful. Usually, good guy characters are boring until they confront a bad guy character's evil. It's like the bad guy's evil energizes the good guy's personality. Mike is boring in scenes in which he's not confronting Tom. Also, in the Powers' family, the good guys are just as tough as the bad guys. Witness the stern personality of Tom's father. However, it's Public Enemy's bad guys that possess more dimension whether they're interacting with other characters or in scenes by themselves.

[–] NSurone 16 years ago

Mike's beliefs and ethics were really put to the test when he returned from the war shell-shocked and disillusioned. The idea that his criminal brother may have had the right idea all along fills Mike with such self-loathing that he reacts by destroying the beer keg.
He eventually recovers his sanity around the time he and Tom reconcile; the film does not explain how.

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] novastar_6 12 years ago

I liked the part where Tom told his brother 'you got blood on your hands too, you killed and you liked it! They didn't give you those medals for holding hands with the Germans!' Very true and nobody ever thinks about it.

[–] bradford-1 10 years ago

One assumes Mike didn't have any psychiatric counseling in 1920! I figure the ministrations of his fiancee (?) and mother helped pull him away from the abyss.
May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?

[–] marktayloruk (2425) 2 years ago

I wonder- did Mike try to avenge Tom? Script intimated as much.