This film is one of the earliest and best of the gangster films from Warner Bros. The film's screenplay (by John Bright and Kubec Glasmon), which received the film's only Academy Award nomination, was based upon their novel Beer and Blood.
Unfortunately, Cagney was not rewarded with a nomination for his performance. Jean Harlow's small role as a sexy call-girl was her only screen appearance with Cagney and her only lead role with Warners.

The lead character is portrayed as a sexually magnetic, cocky, completely amoral, emotionally brutal, ruthless, and terribly lethal individual.
He begins his life, not as a hardened criminal, but as a young mischievous boy in pre-Prohibition city streets, whose early environment clearly contributes to the development of his life of adult crime and his gruesome death.
Cagney's character was based on real-life Chicago gangster Earl "Hymie" Weiss (who also survived a machine-gun ambush) and bootlegging mobster Charles Dion "Deanie" O'Banion (an arch-rival to Al Capone).
Reportedly, an exasperated Weiss slammed an omelette (not a grapefruit) into the face of his girlfriend. Similarities also exist between the demise of Nails Nathan and the 1923 death of real-life Samuel J. "Nails" Morton of the O'Banion mob. The retaliatory horse killing in the film was a replay of a similar incident when organized crime figure Louis "Two-Gun" Alterie (and other North Side gang members) executed the offending horse in Chicago after the death of their friend.

James Cagney's dynamic, and magnetic characterization of the murderous thug was his fifth film performance. He had previously performed tough-guy roles in two other Warner Bros. features: Sinner's Holiday (1930) (his film debut with co-star Joan Blondell) and The Doorway to Hell (1930). This volatile role made him famous and instantly launched his celebrated film star career, but it also typecast him for many years.
Cagney went on to play other criminal roles, including such films as Smart Money (1931) with Edward G. Robinson (their only teaming together), and Lady Killer (1933).