***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.

"Public Hero No. 1" is part of the FBI public relations program to make G-men into heroes and replace the gangster as the box office attraction (e.g., "G-Men" with Jimmy Cagney, "Bullets or Ballots" with Edward G. Robinson). After all, in the early 30s, it's the gangster who got the big box office bucks – "Little Caesar", "Public Enemy", etc.Chester Morris plays the undercover G-man who infiltrates the notorious Midwest Purple Gang by breaking the gang leader (Joseph Calleia) out of prison. Along the way he meets the mob doctor (Lionel Barrymore) and falls in love with the mobster's sister (Jean Arthur).The first third of the film is a standard prison film with a pretty exciting prison break sequence, although it wouldn't make my top 10 list ("Cool Hand Luke", "Each Dawn I Die", "Papillion", "Midnight Express", "The Shawshank Redemption", "The Escapist", "I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang", "Escape from New York", "Stalag 17", "The Great Escape"). No sooner do we get comfortable with the prison genre, the film dramatically changes tone and becomes a classic 30s screwball comedy with Jean Arthur exchanging verbal bullets with fast talking Chester Morris, and a very animated Lionel Barrymore overplaying his role as a drunken physician. When it returns to the crime drama with star crossed lovers, the film begins to wobble a bit, but eventually it moves to the happy ending expected in the mid 30s, with a Dillinger-esque shootout to cap it off.It's a fast paced film, but there are far better crime films and screwball comedies from this era. Still, the performances are uniformly good, so if you're a fan of Morris, Callelia, Barrymore, George E. Stone, Paul Kelly, et al you'll enjoy the film

Public Hero #1 starts out as a conventional prison yarn, then switches to sophisticated screwball comedy, then back to shoot 'em up melodrama. Perhaps it is the way the cast handles the crackling dialogue by J Walter Reuben and Wells Root that makes this mixed-genre film so entertaining. It never sinks into torpidity, thanks in part to the introduction of Jean Arthur and Lionel Barrymore well into the proceedings. Until then it is up to Chester Morris to hold our interest, which he does robustly, as an undercover federal agent posing as a convict to trap bad guy Joseph Calleia and his gang. Barrymore, however, steals the show as a pickled-to-the-gills alcoholic mob doctor - the great ham at his hammiest. Calleia contributes a nicely textured portrait of a hardened but still human criminal. All in all, an energetic if contrived gangster story spiked with laughs, fun plot twists and colorful characters. The final moment is interesting. It's as if Chester Morris was itching to wrap and go home that day, didn't like the way the fade out was written, so he recklessly improvised the last line and the last blocking bit and then the director gave in and allowed it. See for yourself!