THE PUBLIC ENEMY (1931)

Let’s start with perhaps the most famous piece of movie misogyny ever produced – Jimmy Cagney pushing a grapefruit into Mae Clarke’s face in The Public Enemy. There are varying stories about how this scene came about. One such story is that Mae Clarke was unaware that the grapefuit was coming, which accounts for her look of genuine distraught after Cagney gives her a faceful. In her autobiography, however, Clarke says she did know about it in advance but didn’t think it was going to be in the final cut. Apparently, Clarke’s ex-husband loved the scene so much that he went to see the film every day, timing his entry into the cinema so he came in just as the scene was starting and left after it finished.

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