Cheap White Heat (Video) (James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien) (Raoul Walsh) Price
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Director Raoul Walsh propels the story from a rolling start, a tautly paced train robbery that goes awry, culminating in the leader's capture. An ambitious henchman (Steve Cochran) plots a behind-bars hit foiled by O'Brien, who's infiltrated the prison to befriend Jarrett, a goal handily accomplished with the rescue. Jarrett's paranoia, murderous anger, and longing for his mother are interwoven with intermittent, incapacitating headaches that underline and amplify his core of inner rage; Cagney makes these seizures harrowing, revealing purely animal pain and terror at once frightening and pathetic.
Jarrett's escape, the gang's reunion with fellow escapee O'Brien aboard, trusted by Jarrett but not his partners, and the big score that unravels in a climactic gun battle in an oil refinery are conducted with a gritty economy, and Walsh and his cast evoke a criminal life devoid of glamour, noteworthy for the undercurrents of distrust that keep tempers flaring. The final showdown, and Jarrett's crazed, taunting battle cry in the face of death ("Top of the world, Ma!"), achieve a sense of tragic inevitability that deservedly make this a defining moment in Cagney's screen career. --Sam Sutherland
| ACTORS: | James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien |
| CATEGORY: | Video |
| DIRECTOR: | Raoul Walsh |
| THEATRICAL RELEASE DATE: | 01 January, 1949 |
| MANUFACTURER: | Warner Studios |
| MPAA RATING: | NR (Not Rated) |
| FEATURES: | Black & White, Closed-captioned, NTSC |
| TYPE: | Feature Film-drama |
| MEDIA: | VHS Tape |
| # OF MEDIA: | 1 |
| UPC: | 012569502338 |
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Customer Reviews of White Heat
the film that ended the 40's with a bang. I have seen White Heat numerous times and it never flags or fails. It's the swan song of Warner Brothers gangster films and is one of the wildest rides you can imagine. It's a heist film, with a twist and it comes in the form of a gangster so bent, so over the top, that no one has come close to it.No one is stupid enough to try. James Cagney plays Cody Jarrett, a ruthless gangster,killer,strong arm robber and mama's boy. His work is so compelling, so overwhelming and vicious that it stunned viewers in 1949 and followed Cagney for the rest of his career. Cagney loathed the success of the role, fearing that it overshadowed all of his other screen performances, which it did, for its successful portrayal of a lunatic force of nature. Cagney was an actor who could and did anything. Gangsters, screwball comedies, dramas, musicals, westerns, war films, and Shakespeare. To be typed as an insane killer, who could shoot trapped henchmen in a car trunk while munching on a chicken leg, while throwing off one liners,was not what he wanted to be remembered for, but watch White Heat and see if this work can be easily forgotten. White Heat's non-stop action, it's no nonsense propulsion is provided by a solid script, great character actors, and the perceptive eye of director Raoul Walsh. We find ourselves clearly rooting for a psychopathic killer, because most of the world he moves through is populated with nothing but thieves, backstabbers and robot like FBI agents who walk and talk like Hal 2000's. And check out the role of Fallon (Edmond O'Brien). It's a cunning performance and contributes to the overall weirdness of White Heat. No sense giving the ending away, but it did introduce audiences to the cataclysmic force of the atomic age in all it's craziness. You have to go to Kiss Me Deadly to find an ending that gets close to matching it. I hate numerology, but if you like segmenting films by decades, White Heat is the film that ends the 1940's. Nothing comes close.
Engrossing gangster portrayal
James Cagney, in older years, retakes his archetypal gangster role, though this time, he invests it with greater psychological connotations as the unbalanced, mother-fixated hoodlum, Cody Jarrett. As opposed to the usual Depression-era ambient, Cagney, in the crowning performances of his career, plays the ageing gangleader Jarrett, who is caught in a spiral of tension as a relentless undercover agent (Edmond O'Brien) infiltrates his gang with a view to putting him inside, while his faithless wife and his rival (outstandingly played by Virginia Mayo and Steve Cochran respectively) plot his as well as his mother's deaths. Margaret Wycherley is fine in the supporting role of Jarrett's mother, the object of his obsessive Oedipal devotion. What is most endearing about this film is that, for a movie that was made in 1949, it works with still the same narrative machinery of contemporary thrillers exploring the same themes. This proves that it hasn't dated at all, producing often mesmerisingly suspenseful results. It can be compared, with favour, to the best and latest offerings of the gangster-thriller genre. One scene in the middle (a hand-to-hand combat between T-Man Edmond O'Brien and a hoodlum) has the privilige of being one of the earliest martial arts displays in the history of Hollywood -- an ancestor of the fight scenes of Seagal, Van Damme, Snipes, et al.
Cagney & Crew Pack A Brutal Punch
There are two styles of Film Noir. The Noir of the 1940s is characterized by glossy production values, gumshoes and dangerous women, and complex plots that emphasize moral ambiguity. The Noir of the 1950s is characterized by a gritty realism and brutality and tends to place the criminal at center of the story. The 1949 film WHITE HEAT straddles the two styles--a fact that makes it "required viewing" for any one interested in the way Film Noir developed and changed over time. But WHITE HEAT is much more than a film with historical significance. It continues to pack quite a punch right up present day.
At the time it was released many critics warned audiences about the movie's level of violence. By today's standards the violence isn't much: you won't find oozing gore. But WHITE HEAT bests most modern films in terms of brutality. You might not see the blood pouring, but the harsh tone of the film and its vicious characters create a sense of violence that generally outstrips more graphic modern films. The pace of the film is driving, the story and dialogue convincing, and the cast top-notch all the way.
James Cagney spent much of the 1940s trying to distance himself from the gangster roles he created in the 1930s, but he returns to the genre in what may be his single finest performance as Cody Jarrett, career criminal, gang leader, and easily one of the most psychotic criminals Hollywood has ever portrayed. Backed by his equally dangerous mother and perfidious wife (Margaret Wycherly and Virginia Mayo, both of whom give the performances of their careers), Jarrett undertakes a train holdup--and when things get too hot tries to sidetrack the cops by taking a rap on a minor charge. But the cops are onto his tricks, and they place an operative in his cell, hoping to get the evidence they need to send him to the gas chamber.
Although the plot is convoluted, director Raoul Walsh endows the film with considerable clarity, directness, and speed, and from the opening scenes of train robbery to the justly celebrated climax at the refinery, WHITE HEAT contains one memorable moment after another. Hard-driving, fascinating, and powerful, this is a must-have for any one who enjoys Film Noir.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer