“White Heat” (1949)

White Heat

Grade: A+

James Cagney delivers one of his greatest and most manic performances in White Heat, a classic gangster movie that features gritty violence and a storyline that is both exciting and enthralling. A few more notes on White Heat:

Directing:

White Heat is a film noir in that it focuses on cynical characters committing immoral crimes. But other than a few shadowy scenes (a sequence toward the end of the film in which Virginia Mayo’s character climbs up a dark staircase), the movie doesn’t contain the traditional expressionist visuals you’d expect from the genre. That’s because director Raoul Walsh began his career way back during the dawn of Hollywood (he even played John Wilkes Booth in D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation). As a result, White Heat possesses an efficient workmanlike quality, with simple shots that let the storyline speak for itself. This is an old-school gangster flick through and through, and it’s all the better for it.

Acting:

James Cagney is Cody Jarrett, a psychopathic gangster that suffers from extreme migraines and only trusts his mother. I wouldn’t be surprised if he served as the basis for Tony Soprano, as Jarrett is one of cinema’s most unforgettable and uncompromising anti-heroes. Cagney’s crazed energy fills every frame, bringing an exciting unpredictability to the storyline. It’s fun to watch his character’s volatile personality, but we’re never actually rooting for him to succeed, which is just as Cagney and Walsh intended.

Writing:

The screenplay by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts is somewhat complex, filled with capers, chase scenes, double-crosses and undercover agents. But Walsh does such a great job reducing the camera movement to the bare essentials that the storyline is splendidly easy to follow. From the opening train robbery to the final showdown at the chemical factory, White Heat is an edge-of-your-seat thriller that never disappoints and never slows down.

Music:

Max Steiner keeps the action going with a bombastic orchestral score that sometimes comes on a bit too strong but does a great job matching the intensity of Cagney’s performance. My copy of the DVD got a little too loud during some of the more blaring sections, but I guess I can’t blame Steiner for that.

Ending (SPOILERS):

Cody Jarrett is a psycho all the way to the bitter end, and the final showdown fittingly ends with him losing touch with reality, climbing to the top of a Horton sphere gas tank and blowing himself up in a mini-nuclear explosion. “Top of the world, ma!” he shouts as he’s incinerated in a mushroom cloud. It’s hilarious — one of the best movie deaths of all time and a perfect conclusion to one of Cagney’s most compelling characters.

“If I turn my back long enough for Big Ed to put a hole in it, there’d be a hole in it.” – Cody Jarrett

Why White Heat gets an A+:

White Heat is a fascinatingly dark character study, anchored by one of the greatest actors in cinematic history. As far as the gangster genre goes, this one has everything you need.

Accolades:

Colin’s Review Best Films of the 1940s

---