White Heat (1949)

None of James Cagney's superlative gangster films of the 1930s approaches the quality of White Heat. Under Raoul Walsh's masterly direction, Cagney brought the image of the gangster into the realm of psychological thriller. Never was Cagney, as gangster Cody Jarrett, so intense, electrifying, or lethal. He deserved the 1949 Academy Award for best actor, and he was not even nominated.

White Heat opens as a train is robbed by Cody Jarrett (Cagney) and his gang. One of the members mentions Cagney's name in front of the engineer, so Cagney shoots both engineer and fireman to prevent them from later identifying him. But the dying engineer falls on a lever that releases a steam valve, and gang member Hommell (Ford Rainey) is horribly scalded while standing by the side of the train. The gang flees and hides out in a mountain cabin. There, Rainey suffers horribly from his wounds. The gang members, especially the rebellious Big Ed (Steve Cochran), want to leave the cold cabin but Cagney orders them to stay where they are. Cagney's wife, Verna (Mayo), does nothing but sleep all day while his mother (Margaret Wycherly) looks after Cagney. Cochran and Mayo, it is obvious, have a yen for each other and are constantly exchanging suggestive looks, and Cochran also has ideas about taking over the gang.

While cleaning his revolver, Cagney suddenly gets one of his severe headaches and begins to fall forward, accidentally firing a shot that alarms everyone. His mother manages to steer him into a bedroom so the gang will not see him go through the agony of his recurrent searing headaches. She massages his head and coolly talks to him until the seizure passes. "Now go out there and show 'em who's boss, son -Remember, top of the world!" Wycherly orders her son, and he marches into the outer room to tell everyone to start packing, that they are leaving for southern California.

The gang clears out, but Cagney orders Valetti (Wally Cassell) to kill his friend Rainey. With everyone else outside, Cassell tells Rainey he will send help, then fires a shot into the air to make it seem as though he has killed Rainey. He then runs outside and gets into the car. The gang flees south, Cagney taking his mother and wife with him. The other gang members leave in another car, but before the cars take their separate paths, Mayo gives Cochran, at the wheel of the other car, a long, knowing look as he smiles back at her.

Meanwhile, federal agent Evans (John Archer) is trying to piece together the identities of the train robbers and is having no luck. He then gets a report of Rainey being found frozen to death in the cabin, and when he learns that the dead man has been scalded, he thinks it might have been from the steam engine in the train holdup.

An investigation of the cabin finds Cassell's fingerprints, and since Cassell is a known member of Cagney's gang, Archer begins a manhunt for Cagney. One of his agents spots Wycherly buying fresh strawberries for her son at a fruit stand in downtown L.A. and he affixes a rag to the bumper of her car so the vehicle can be identified and followed, then calls Archer.

The agent has his cars follow the woman to a motor court where Cagney is staying with Wycherly and Mayo. Archer enters the court, but he's spotted by Cagney, who wounds the agent then escapes with Wycherly and Mayo. They hide from pursuing police at a drive-in movie, nervously watching Task Force (1949) (a Warner Bros. movie starring Gary Cooper).

While sitting in the drive-in, Cagney realizes he must figure out a plan to clear himself of the train robbery and the murders. He remembers a robbery in Illinois done by "Scratch Morton," who has not been caught. He tells Wycherly that he is going to turn himself in for the Illinois robbery and get a lesser sentence than what the train robbery would bring, and he will soon be out of prison, rejoining her and Mayo.

Cagney confesses to the robbery in Illinois and is given a prison sentence. Archer, who has no witnesses that Cagney shot him, plants a police informant, Fallon (Edmond O'Brien), in Cagney's cell. He overcomes Cagney's natural suspicion of strangers by covering for Cagney when the gangster has his seizures, becoming a surrogate mother, and is taken into the gangster's confidence. Meanwhile, Mayo has taken up with Cochran, a development Wycherly shares with Cagney when she visits him. She also warns her son to be careful, and he nods knowingly since he was almost killed when a piece of machinery fell from a crane in the machine shop. He realizes the crane operator, Parker (Paul Guilfoyle), is a friend of Cochran's. Wycherly assures him she will take care of matters on the outside, then leaves while Cagney frantically screams for her to be careful.

A few days later, while eating in the mess hall with hundreds of other prisoners, Cagney gets the news that Wycherly is dead. He goes berserk and has to be subdued by several guards, who drag him from the mess hall. He is put into a straitjacket and placed in the prison clinic. From there, he engineers an escape, taking along other inmates, including O'Brien and Cochran's pal Guilfoyle, who is forced into the trunk of the car Cagney has stolen for the escape.

Cagney stops at a farmhouse to change clothes and hears Guilfoyle screaming from the trunk, saying he can't breathe. Cagney, chewing on a chicken drumstick, pulls out his automatic and shouts: "Stuffy in there, Parker? I'll give it some air!" He then blasts the trunk, killing Guilfoyle, and, just as casually, tosses away the bone from the drumstick and gets into another car.

Cagney arrives in California at the house where Mayo and Cochran are staying. He finds his wife in the garage and is about to kill her, but she convinces him that Cochran had forced her to go along with him, that he has held her a virtual prisoner. She lies and says Cochran shot his mother in the back, when she, in fact, was the killer. Cagney then enters the house and kills Cochran, which puts the gang on the run again.

O'Brien remains with the gang but has been unable to contact agent Archer. He tries to slip away one night to get word to federal authorities, but runs right into Cagney who steps from the woods, eyes glazed. He tells O'Brien that he was "out there_talking to Ma. I liked it, liked it a lot_Maybe I am nuts!" Attempted robbery. Later, Cagney and his gang get involved with a plan to steal the payroll from an oil refinery. They hide inside an empty oil truck and head for the plant. But O'Brien has installed an oscillator on the bottom of the truck, and its signal is picked up by agents who trail the truck to the oil refinery. The driver of the truck, a recently released convict, recognizes O'Brien as a federal agent and tells Cagney while the gang is inside the plant. Cagney screams that he trusted O'Brien like his own brother and shoots at him but hits one of his own men. O'Brien escapes to join an army of police outside.

Trapped, Cagney's men are killed one by one, leaving Cagney alone on top of a huge oil tank. Using a high-powered rifle with a telescopic lens, while lights play upon Cagney, O'Brien shoots him; but Cagney only laughs hysterically while he staggers around wounded, then fires into the tank, igniting the oil. Flames shoot out around the gangster as he continues to stagger around, firing more shots into the tank. Dying, Cagney suddenly stands upright, spreads his arms, and looks heavenward to shout at the top of his lungs: "Made it, Ma! Top of the world!"

The oil tank then erupts with an ear-splitting explosion, killing Cagney and igniting the entire oil field. O'Brien looks on in awe, saying, "Cody Jarrett – he finally made it to the top of the world and it blew up in his face." The film ends as one titanic explosion after another is shown, flames shooting skyward in billowing bursts, fireballs looking like miniature atom bombs going off.

White Heat is one of the toughest and most explicit crime films ever made, brilliantly directed by Walsh, who deftly guided Cagney to perform his virtuoso essay of a psychopathic gangster. Cagney is as lethal to his own kind as he is to people of law and order, a homicidal maniac whose insanity is certifiable, and he actually knows it. His role is based on Arthur "Doc" Barker, and Wycherly is playing the infamous "Ma" Barker, the earthshaking catalyst of his criminal pursuits. Cagney graphically demonstrates Jarrett's mother fixation when the actor, following one of his epileptic-type fits, is soothed by Wycherly. He gratefully moves toward her and then, a grown man, sits in her lap to allow her to assure him that all is fine. This startling scene, like many others in this classic film noir entry, was Cagney's own idea. Again, to achieve the high level of intensity of his part and project the lunatic he had to make believable, Cagney called on his own experiences to provide impetus for his moments of insanity. He later stated: "I knew what deranged people sounded like, because, once as a youngster, I had visited Ward's Island where a pal's uncle was in the hospital for the insane. My God, what an education that was! The shrieks, the screams of those people under restraint. I remembered those cries, saw that they fitted, and I called on my memory to do as required."

Cast

James Cagney, Arthur Cody Jarrett

Virginia Mayo, Verna Jarrett

Edmond O'Brien, Hank Fallon/Vic Pardo

Margaret Wycherly, Ma Jarrett

Steve Cochran, Big Ed Somers

John Archer, Phillip Evans

Production Credits

Producer, Louis F. Edelman

Director, Raoul Walsh

Writers,: Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts (based on a story by Virginia Kellogg)

Cinematographer, Sid Hickox

Editor, Owen Marks

Music Composer, Max Steiner

Art Director, Edward Carrere