PREMIER MOVIE REVIEWS - White Heat (1949)

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White Heat (1949)

Genre: Gangster/Crime

Director: Raoul Walsh

  Plot Summary & Review

Raoul Walsh's taut dynamic gangster movie from 1949 - that grabs you in the opening moments and never lets go.  James Cagney is Arthur "Cody" Jarrett, a psychotic, mother fixated hoodlum who runs a violent gang specialising in major robberies.

James Cagney
James Cagney Photo
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After a train hold-up ends in four deaths the gang goes on the run but the Treasury (T-Men) track them down.  In a fiendish ploy Cody Jarrett confesses to another smaller crime and is sent down for a couple of years hoping the heat will die down.  The T-Men agree to this but send one of their men, played by Edmund O'Brien, in as his cellmate to befriend Jarrett and find out where all the money went.  Unfortunately Jarrett’s wife Verna runs off with another gang member who then tries to have Cody killed.  As a consequence Cody breaks out and undertakes the biggest job of his career...

It’s a very modern film in which Cody's twitchy neurosis is dissected and its use of brutal amoral violence must have shocked at the time.  There is also great use of modern electronics and tracking devices that give the final sequence a tension that leads to its inexorable conclusion.  Cagney is just incredible in the role – his performance is electric.  His character is a deranged lunatic - you literally have no idea what he going to do next and by the time he has gone beyond all sanity and into a gibbering madman atop the gas towers - you have one of the greatest endings in cinema. 

Made it, Ma! Top of the world!

Reviewed by George Kaplan, Premier Movie Reviews 2007

Main Cast

James Cagney

Virginia Mayo

Edmond O'Brien

Margaret Wycherly

Steve Cochran

John Archer

RATING

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

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