White Heat
Originally reviewed on April 10th, 2018
White Heat revolves around a psychotic, mother-infatuated gangster named Cody Jarrett, played by James Cagney. Most gangster films at the time featured a protagonist who, while he was a gangster, was also a little sympathetic. Cagney knew that in order to stand out from the crowd, he’d start there. In the movie, Cody Jarrett is an absolute psychopath who kills anyone who isn’t on his side. This adds up to 13 total killings, which during 1949 was unheard of. All these murders wasn’t what made Cody Jarrett so menacing in White Heat though, it was his unpredictability. Throughout the film Jarrett suffers from debilitating migraines that cause him to go into psychotic episodes. The highlight of this comes during a scene when Jarrett learns about the death of his mother. Cagney’s acting is so spot on, that not only do the extras freak out, but Cagney refused to ever watch the movie because of this scene.
While the acting is superb and worth watching this movie 10 times over, it’s not the only thing that’s special. There are tons of iconic moments sprinkled throughout the events of White Heat. From cops hidden in the gang, to one of the most unforgettable lines ever spoken in cinema at the very end, when Jarrett is on top of the gas tank screaming, “Made it Ma! Top of the World!” If you ever want to find why tropes have become as famous as they have, or why a genre follows popular trends, just look towards the classics like White Heat. See you later, I’m Parker Carlson
Every film buff needs to watch the classics which paved the way forward in genre-defining style. Through countless numbers of catalogs claiming this or that movie is the one that changed the genre, I found the one that is actually true: White Heat. White Heat is a 1949 gangster-noir movie that influenced all future gangster movies to come.
White Heat was directed by Raoul Walsh, written by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, but most importantly starred James Cagney, one of the most distinguished actors of all time. Before you can even get into the movie, you need to know that the movie could’ve been made very different. See, in 1949, gangster movies were becoming the stale, run-of-the-mill movies that flooded theaters -- kinda like superhero movies today -- so all expectations were on them to make a movie that stood out. To do this, they had to convince James Cagney who was tired of being typecast in gangster movies, but he reluctantly agreed to join. So with the cards stacked against them, how did they do?
