Joan Blondell, Jean Harlow, James Cagney in Public Enemy

Talked to a number of folks, like my grandfather, who remembered that grapefruit scene from back when the film was new. Everyone found it really, really disturbing back then.

In a way, it really is. Not just because of the base callousness of the act in isolation. But because of the context. There's a sad, pathetic nature to Clarke, here having been a cheap 'pick-up,' but with the morning after, trying vainly to bring a little upbeat domestic 'normalcy' via a morning breakfast, and getting nothing but venom from Cagney. It's deeply brutal, in the psychological vein.

I did meet Mae Clarke once, and even got her to sign a page in a book I had, called "Hollywood Players: The 1930s," which had a little chapter on her and her career. She was a very good actress, which is more in evidence in her star role in the original version of "Waterloo Bridge" in 1931.