White Heat ***** (1949, James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Margaret Wycherly, Edmond O’Brien) – Classic Movie Review 147

James Cagney is brilliant as psychotic, epileptic gangster Cody Jarrett, fixated on his conniving mother Ma Jarrett (Margaret Wycherly), in the awesome 1949 gangster film White Heat.

A perfectly cast James Cagney is brilliant as psychotic, epileptic gangster Cody Jarrett, fixated on his conniving mother Ma Jarrett (Margaret Wycherly), in the awesome film noir gangster movie from 1949 White Heat. These are truly a couple of memorably crazy characters!

Virginia Kellogg’s Oscar-nominated original story and Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts’s screenplay turn up the heat on the gangster movie to white hot, reflecting a change in the times in the 40s. Apparently, the movie seems to be saying, life is more desperate and crime much nastier than it was in the 30s.

Jarrett’s head henchman tries to have him killed while he’s in jail so that he can take over. But then the Los Angeles police send in undercover cop Edmond O’Brien under a false name to try to bust Jarrett and his gang. The dogged cop pretends to be a prisoner and saves Jarrett’s life, and they become supposed close friends. Jarrett escapes from jail and returns to assemble his old gang to carry out a payroll heist on a chemical plant. All seems well, until the inevitable final betrayal.

One of Cagney’s finest films, maybe his best gangster movie, this vintage Mob thriller is a triumphant return to his great 30s form, after a decade away from gangster parts that made and kept him famous (1931’s The Public Enemy, 1938’s Angels with Dirty Faces). Propelled by a dynamic score by Max Steiner, it is a model exercise in suspense, action and character building.

We get to know and understand Cagney’s Jarrett, who then becomes worryingly sympathetic. When Cagney isn’t sitting on his mother’s knee (‘all I ever had was ma’) or ignoring his wife Verna (Virginia Mayo), he’s battling his neuroses, headaches and personal demons, real and imagined, while handing out the tough stuff.

Wycherly is astounding as Ma Jarrett, making the utmost of her grandstanding opportunity in her finest appearance in the movies. The always admirable O’Brien, the forgotten Mayo and Steve Cochran as the treacherous Big Ed Somers are all excellent too

Director Raoul Walsh matches his star for toughness, tension and speed, and is rewarded with a classic movie that propels headlong all the way to its electrifying end (‘Top of the world, ma!).

Also in the cast are John Archer, Wally Cassell, Fred Clark, Ford Rainey, Fred Coby, G Pat Collins, Mickey Knox, Paul Guilfoyle, Robert Osterloh, Ian MacDonald, Ray Montgomery, Jim Toney, Leo Cleary, Murray Leonard, Terry O’Sullivan, Marshall Bradford, Milton Parsons and Lee Phelps.

White Heat is directed by Raoul Walsh, runs 114 minutes, is made and released by Warner Bros, written Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, suggested by a story by Virginia Kellogg, is shot in black and white by Sidney [Sid] Hickox, is produced by Louis F Edelman, is scored by Max Steiner, with art direction by Edward Carrere.

It was released on September 2, 1949.

Cementing its status as one of the all-time great gangster movies,  it was added to the US National Film Registry in 2003 by the US Library of Congress as culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.

White Heat’s prison mess hall scene involving 600 extras had to be shot in under three hours.

Jack Warner wanted the prison mess hall scene replaced for budgetary reasons, saying the ‘cost of a single scene with 600 extras and only one line of dialogue would be exorbitant’. However, he agreed to the scene if it was shot in three hours, so ‘that the extras were through by lunchtime’.

Walsh had previously worked with Cagney on the crime thriller The Roaring Twenties (1939) and the romantic comedy The Strawberry Blonde (1941).

The cast are James Cagney as Arthur “Cody” Jarrett, Virginia Mayo as Verna Jarrett Edmond O’Brien as Hank Fallon alias Vic Pardo, Margaret Wycherly as Ma Jarrett, Steve Cochran as “Big Ed” Somers, John Archer as Philip Evans, Wally Cassell as Giovanni “Cotton” Valletti, Fred Clark as Daniel “The Trader” Winston, G Pat Collins as Reader Curtin, Paul Guilfoyle as Roy Parker, Ian MacDonald as Bo Creel, Robert Osterloh as Tommy Ryley, Ford Rainey as Zuckie Hommel, Aline Towne as Margaret Baxter, Jim Thorpe as Inmate, Fred Coby, Mickey Knox, Ray Montgomery, Jim Toney, Leo Cleary, Murray Leonard, Terry O’Sullivan, Marshall Bradford, Milton Parsons and Lee Phelps.

© Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Movie Review 147

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