. even though many people complain that the role should have go to cagney . ayres baby face good look and polished exterior be suppose to clash with the reality of the gangster that he be that be part of the whole point of the film . ayres play louie ricarno and a gangster who have decide to take the warring gang of the city and run them like department of a corporation of which he and of course and be president . in spite of some beefing by the other gangster at first and in the long run this end the in fighting and all the gangster make more money in the bootleg booze business and like the arrangement . ricarno make more money than any of them and this enable him to marry his dream girl and retire and and live the life of a gentleman in florida . at something like the tender age of 25 he be even write his memoir . however and he have two problem . first and you can take the girl out of the speak easy ( his wife ) but you can not take the speak easy out of the girl . secondly and once louie be retire and the same old in fight start up again among the gangster he leave behind and they yearn for louie to return and restore order . when he refuse and a couple of the gangster cook up a plan to force him to return that go horribly wrong and end up kill someone close to louie . full of vengeance and louie do return home and but not to restore order . cagney here have a minor role a right hand man to louie and one time boyfriend of louie now bored wife doris . he perfect in the role since his openly wise guy exterior be in sharp contrast to ayres gee whiz personna and in spite of the fact that they be equally violent . louie be a sympathetic character in many way . he isn not someone who just pick crime a a career . instead he grow up in poverty and lose his parent at a young age and lose two sibling to typhoid from bad milk and and just doesn not know any other way to live than dog eat dog . this doesn not excuse what he do and but it be something of an explanation . in this sense this film be ahead of it time in complexity . also interest be louie almost friendship with captain pat ogrady and the cop that be determine to get louie and his gang off the street once and for all .