White Heat (1949)
Directed by Raoul Walsh

Film Review

White Heat marks the climactic end to Warner Brothers' spectacular cycle of gangster films, which began with Little Caesar (1930) and The Public Enemy (1931), and which exerted a huge influence on the development of American cinema from the 1930s.   One of the actors who was most associated with these films was James Cagney, whose portrayal of criminal thugs made him one of Hollywood's biggest stars.  Throughout most of the 1940s, fearing being typecast, Cagney made a serious attempt to break away from the tough guy parts that had brought him fame.  In 1949, however, the actor was tempted back to the gangster movie, to give what many regard as his finest performance, in one of the best films of the genre.

The director of White Heat was Raoul Walsh, who had previously worked with James Cagney on another classic gangster film, The Roaring Twenties (1939).  Walsh had a reputation for uncompromising realism and White Heat is renowned for its graphic depiction of violence and brutality, which was pretty exceptional at the time.  One of the most striking things about this film is how modern it feels today; it is hard to believe that it was made back in the 1940s.

One area where White Heat certainly broke new ground was its realistic portrayal of the criminal as a victim of psychological disorder.  What makes the film so memorable, and so disturbing, is that the central character, Jarett, isn't just bad - he's also mad, and convincingly so.  We learn that his psychosis stems from his bizarre relationship with his mother, which goes way beyond the Oedipal.  There's a suggestion of Frankenstein-and-the-monster here: Jarrett is a creature that has been fashioned in the image of his mother's twisted, heartless soul.  When his mother, his creator, is taken away from him, Jarett is helpless, and his psychosis completely consumes him, propelling him to an inescapable doom.

Jarett is brutal and sometimes terrifying, but he is, perversely, the only sympathetic character in the film.  Everyone else resorts to some kind of trickery to bring about his downfall.   Time and again, Jarett tries to redeem himself by putting his trust in someone, and on each occasion he is deceived.  He is a thoroughly tragic character, an outcast from human society. Cagney's extraordinary portrayal of Jarett evokes a whole spectrum of feelings, taking in repugnance, horror and compassion, and is every bit as chilling and poignant as Anthony Perkins's turn as Norman Bates in Hitchcock's Psycho (1960).

Film noir brings to the gangster film layers of psychological depth and subtle menace that had perhaps been missing in earlier offerings of the genre.  Raoul Walsh embraces the potentialities that film noir offers for accentuating the impact of the brutal world of the gangster. With its violent action scenes, relentless pace and moments of searing dramatic intensity, White Heat is the toughest, bleakest and arguably the best of the classic film noir thrillers.  The shot at the end of the film where Cagney stands on top of a blazing oil refinery and yells "Made it Ma, to the top of the world" is one of the most iconic images in film history.   White Heat is a remarkable film - a fast and furious high-octane thriller experience of the highest order.

Film Synopsis

Cody Jarett is the psychotic leader of a gang of crooks which the FBI has been trying to round up for some time.  The only person Jarett trusts is his mother, who is every bit as tough and resourceful as he is, and far more reliable than his egoistical wife.   To avoid being sentenced for a mail train robbery in which two innocent people were killed, Jarett allows himself to be arrested and tried for a lesser crime.  An undercover FBI agent, Hank Fallon, is slipped into the prison where Jarett is being held to try to gain his confidence.  The carefully laid plan to lure Jarett into a trap backfires when the gangster manages to pull off his own jailbreak...