Wow! Such a good movie.

Thanks for the memories!

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

***SPOILERS*** Wild and violent, even by Hollywood standers, crime flick about a ruthless gang-"The Purple Gang"-of escaped convicts headed by Sonny "Dinky" Black, Joseph Calleia,who's been infiltrated by undercover G-Man the squared jawed Jeff Crane,Chester Morris, posing as a petty stick up artist as well as champion of prisoners rights. It's Crane who helped "Dinky" in being his cell-mate break out of the big house-Prison-and expose or rat out the rest of his on the loose gang members! It's non-other then one of Sonny's gang members the only black man of the group Morse played by Sam Baker who was the famous "Missing Link", in the 1927 silent movie of the same name, who "Dinky" knocked off when he was about to turn him in, for a $5,000.00 reward,to the police.With "Dinky" badly wounded during the escape he seeks out disbarred criminal Doctor Josiah Glass, Lionel Barrymore, to patch him up despite the Doc having a serious drinking problem. It's our hero Jeff Crane who later gets involved when the local highway is washed out in a hurricane with "Dinky's" sister Maria O'Reilly-Small world isn't it-played by the sweet wholesome and feisty Jean Arthur who has no idea that her brother "Dinky" is an escaped convict. Marie wants "Dinky " to move in with her in a farm left to him by one of their relatives and start a new and free from crime life.***SPOILERS*** Undercover G-Man Crane soon falls in love with Marie and has trouble setting up a trap for her brother "Dinky" who he tried to get her the have him peacefully surrender to the police as well as FBI that would prevent him from being executed but given a life sentence,with free room and meals as we'll as well as medical aid,behind bars. Facing dismissal from the FBI for being too soft in getting "Dinky" apprehended, in order not to turn off his girlfriend Marie, by his boss chief inspector Duff, Paul Kelly, Crane with the help of the drunken doctor Glass,finds out where "Dinky's" hiding and has a trap set to catch him that backfires as well as have Marie, in Crane setting her brother up, walk out on him.Crane exonerates himself, to his Boss Duffy and the FBI, at the end of the film by finally getting the elusive "Dinky" gunned down in a John Dillinger-style ambush outside the Bijou Theater, Where Marie was working as a cashier, that he himself got wounder in the crossfire. As for Marie she all but forgave Crane of having her brother "Dinky" iced-Gunned down-in her realizing that he'll never give himself up to the police anyway! And that's like John Dillinger before him by "Dinky" swearing never to be taken alive going down in a blaze of glory and ending up-Like Dillinger did in real life-on a slab at the city morgue!

"Public Hero #1" is a relatively little known, continually entertaining gangster thriller that veers from prison mellerdrama to quirky romance to bullet-riddled shoot-out. Okay, so the plot has enough holes to drive a getaway car through -- like the unexpected "meet cute' encounter, during a flash flood, of a government agent disguised as a hold-up man with the sister of the crime czar he's tracking. But Chester Morris as the plucky, love-stricken fed, Jean Arthur who still loves her brother despite his homicidal tendencies, Lionel Barrymore as a boozy doctor and Joseph Calleia as the underworld kingpin who doesn't seem bright enough to rob a candy store are all fun to watch. And darn near believable. At no point, as the tale gallops through various genres, does it bog down. Wish the same could be said of quite a few more modern movies. Credit director J. Walter Ruben with doing a first-rate job on one of the final films he would helm prior to his premature death at the age of 43.

Interesting mash-up of genres from MGM: part prison/crime drama and part romantic comedy. Two convicts (Chester Morris and Joseph Calleia) escape from prison and one is wounded. The other goes for help and comes back with a drunkard doctor (Lionel Barrymore) and a girl (Jean Arthur), who turns out to be Calleia's sister! Starts out as a fairly typical but enjoyable prison flick. Then there's a twist. I admit I didn't see the twist coming but in retrospect I should have. Others might peg it right away or see it in some plot descriptions. Anyway it changes gears once Jean Arthur enters the picture and becomes a sort of romcom for a little while, before returning to being a crime picture.Terrific cast really makes it worth seeing. In addition to Morris, Arthur, Barrymore, and Calleia, there's Lewis Stone, Paul Kelly, Paul Hurst, and George E. Stone. Ladies will appreciate a shirtless Barrymore washing his moobs in a bath. Spectacularly violent shoot-out between cops and criminal gang. Calleia's fate was obviously inspired by how John Dillinger met his end. Eliminate the final scene between Morris and Arthur and I might have bumped this up to a 7. Hated that part. Remade in 1941 as The Getaway with Robert Sterling and Donna Reed.

I debated watching this one on Turner Classics this morning, but after fifteen minutes into the picture I was hooked. A pre-Boston Blackie Chester Morris makes his mark in a dual role as an undercover detective working a mob connection from inside prison. He's trying to learn the whereabouts of Sonny Black's (Joseph Calleia) headquarters and the rest of the Purple Gang. The reason for that name was never explained, so I was left wondering about it the rest of the story.You generally don't think of a gangster picture as having comedy relief elements, but Lionel Barrymore worked effectively here as the inebriated doctor of choice for the mobsters. Leaving his medical kit at a local gin mill as collateral, Doc Glass had about the finest nose for liquor in film history. On top of that, he always seemed to have a back up stash of the hard stuff in convenient locations just in case the glass he was working on got pinched.Jean Arthur is effective as the good girl who falls for Jeff Crane (Morris), and of course the twist with her character is that she's convict Black's sister. She makes a continuous running play for Crane in the early going, even after she learns he broke out of prison with her brother. That sets up the film's emotional conflict for the finale, as Terry (Arthur) must resolve her feelings for the man who wants to bring her brother to justice.The other performance of note in the picture is Paul Kelly's portrayal of Special Agent Duff, laying it out right on the line for Crane before he gets in too deep with Sonny Black's sister. Fortunately, that tug of war ends on a harmonious note at the closing bell, as Crane and Terry end the picture in a clinch, presumably on the way to the altar. On the way there though, you have a climactic shoot 'em up that leaves all the mobsters on the short end of staccato machine gun fire, courtesy of the era's penchant for closing out such stories with a healthy dose of law and order.