The People's Enemy

Foster is a thoroughly despicable underworld figure whose empire crumbles when he is jailed for income tax evasion--though not before he turns his back on his imperiled wife and kid, eventually losing them to the kindly Douglas. This was one of the first Hollywood pictures to blatantly condemn the lives of the once-heroic gangland figures. RKO let its sentiments be known in the title which implies that underworld activities are a threat to the common man. This appears to have been the studio's response to the toughening attitude of Joseph Breen's censorship office.