Cagney plays the bad guy with a lot of enthusiasm and sells it well. There is no kindness in him. He takes until he's bored and then he kills. The grapefruit scene was staged as a stunt between him and Mae Clarke, but it was so shocking that the director put it in the final cut. In another scene, Cagney's character shoots a horse that threw his boss. This is based on an actual occurrence in the 1920s. But it's just the story of a jerk, so there's not really anybody to root for.