WHITE HEAT

US, 1949, 114 minutes, Black and white.
James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O’ Brien, Margaret Wycherly, Steve Cochrane, Fred Clark.
Directed by Raoul Walsh.

White Heat has become one of the cinema classics of all time. It is continually quoted – especially Cagney’s famous line at the end on the top of the building before his death: “Made it, Ma! Top of the world!”

James Cagney had made a great impact in the 1930s with many gangster films, especially Public Enemy Number One. However, he was also a song-and-dance man and won his Oscar for his portrayal of George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy. In the late 40s and early 50s he made a number of gangster films of which White Heat is the best. He continued making films and appeared in Ragtime in the early 1980s, with his friend Pat O’ Brien.

Edmond O’ Brien was a strong character actor at this time (DOA the same year) and was to win an Oscar as best supporting actor for The Barefoot Contessa in 1954. Steve Cochrane played many heavies in films of the 40s and 50s.

Virginia Mayo has an opportunity for a dramatic role as a gangster’s moll. She also was better known as a song-and-dance performer in films with Bob Hope and Danny Kaye. However, the actress who was remembered best is British-born Margaret Wycherly as Cody Jarrett’s mother, the mother for whom the criminal had an infatuation. She appeared in a number of American films during the 1940s including The Yearling. Until her death in 1956, she appeared in a great deal of American television.

Direction is by Raoul Walsh, the veteran director who made films in Hollywood from 1912 to 1964. He was responsible for many of the action films at Warner Bros in the 1930s and 1940s and a number of Humphrey Bogart vehicles like High Sierra. He made many popular action adventures during the 1950s, especially with the coming of Cinemascope. He also made the version of Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead. (Walsh was an actor and appeared in films about Pancho Villa, directing one in 1912 and portraying the young Villa and The Life of Villa in 1914 – this was re-enacted in Bruce Beresford’s story And Now Pancho Villa, starring himself with Antonio Banderas.)

Gangster films have always been problematic in the United States – many people feeling that they glorified the criminals. This was the case with Cagney’s Public Enemy Number One as well as Scarface. White Heat was banned in 1950 in Finland but got a re-rating in 2004. It was banned in Sweden in 1962. However, with the Motion Picture Code, gangsters had to be seen to come to a bad end.

James Cagney is very effective as the manic Cody Jarrett, leader of a gang, imprisoned, with an attempt on his life by one of his subordinates, escaping, planning a robbery, befriending an undercover policeman but not aware of it and finally coming to a bad end. But, it is the rather oedipal motivation of his relationship with his mother, that drives him.

1. The significance of the title and its tone? Its appropriateness for the climax and relationship to Cody? The tone and pace of the film?

2. This film is now a gangster classic. Is it easy to see why? What are its best features?

3. Comment on the use of the stark black and white photography. The characterizations of people and appropriate actors, the pace of the action of the film, the editing? The portrayal of the police and the portrayal of the thugs? As a picture of American law and gangsterism? As gangsterism motivated by greed? A place of money? The prison sequences? The final climax and shootout?

4. How valuable a study of a gangster was this film? Did it portray accurately and well what he did? Did it also portray well brow he achieved his ambitions? Did the film satisfactorily explore why Cody was a criminal? Whit did the film show of the gangster mentality? A gangster being his own law? The role of ambition and fate in a gangster's life?

5. The success of James Cagney's portrayal of Cody? A classic? Cagney's appearance and style? The initial robbery, Cagney's tough repartee, stance, actions? The sequences of his plans? His relationship with his mother and love for her? Her buying the strawberries etc.? Her pampering him? His relationship with Verna and lack of love of her? His callousness in murdering people and shooting? His shrewdness in the plot to go to prison? Cody in prison and his attitudes towards people? The importance of the headaches and hislIganity background? The explanation of his father? His mother's visit and Ed's planning for his death? His almost being killed and his mother killing Ed? His relationship with Pardo and allowing him to take his mother's place? Cody as a leader? His tantrums in prison? The shrewdness of his escape? The immediacy of going into another crime? His relationship with the traitor? His trust of the traitor and of Pardo? The portraying of his death and his going out in a blaze of glory, white heat at the top of the world? The madness of his ambition?

6. What did the film have to say about his psychotic nature - the quality of his madness, the questions of his identity, his mad father, his mother doing everything for him, the nature of his loving relationships, his fears, sexuality, dependence on his mother and not on Verna etc.? The relationship with Pardo?

7. How interesting was the portrayal of the mother and her pampering of her son, her drive and command, the nature of her death?

8. How typical a gangster's moll was Verna? What was the meaning of her life? Her camp following? Her easiness in changing to Ed? The importance of the betrayal sequence where she betrays Ed and then goes off with Cody? Her trying to do a deal at the end? Was there any admiration in the film for Verna and her type?

9. How interesting was the character of Pardo? Why did he do such police work? The meaning of his life and police ambitions? The quality of his courage? The skill in escaping detection? The lining up for injections? His quick thinking? His suffering solitary etc. for his mission? His capacity for luring Cody into depending on him? Sensing danger and saving him? The success of his mission in identifying the traitor? His skill in with the radio, writing on the mirror? The violence at the end at the risk of his life? The irony of his shooting Cody? Did the film explore what kind of man this was? How similar was he in his relentlessness to Cody? Why was he a hero and Cody a villain?

10. The portrayal of Ed - as a typical criminal trying to be bigger than he is? His style? Taking Verna? His relationship with the boys? The irony of his betrayal and being shot - in the back? The portrayal of the other criminals, as subjugated to the portrayal of Cody?

11. How interestingly were the crimes portrayed - and their detail? The initial train robbery? the plan for the factory, the deals with the traitor and the circulating with the money? The fulfilling of the plan to rob the plant?

12. How interestingly were the police portrayed in this film? Their methods of tracking criminals? The relentlessness and dedication to the job?

13. The importance of the prison sequences and the value of presenting sequences of prison life in this film?

14. The portrayal of America in the late forties - does it differ now?

15. How interesting a film of the gangster genre was this? Should it be a classic? Can its influence on later films be seen?