WHITE HEAT (1949)

The classic era of Warner Brothers gangster movies is bookended by four extraordinary, brutal and unsentimental performances from two of Hollywood’s most talented stars, Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney. Robinson’s performance as the crude and ambitious Rico Bandello in “Little Caesar” in 1930 was followed the next year by Cagney’s as the greedy and ruthless Tom Powers in “The Public Enemy.” The studio hit a trifecta the following year when Paul Muni played a thinly veiled version of Al Capone in “Scarface.”

Then came enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code (AKA the Hays Code), citing what was, and more importantly, what was not acceptable content for motion pictures. The Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors Association (MPPDA) had adopted the guidelines, developed through the late 1920’s, in 1930, but an enforcement entity was not in place until 1934. With its prohibitions against creating sympathy for “the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin,” the depiction of the use of liquor "when not required by the plot or for proper characterization," explicit presentations of the methods of crime, murder scenes unless “filmed in a way that would discourage imitations in real life,” brutal killings and revenge, the Code effectively ended the hard-edged portrayal of gangsters as protagonists. These tough guy characters instead morphed into likable rouges (“All Through the Night,” “Casablanca”), private detectives (“The Maltese Falcon,” “The Big Sleep.”), officers of the law (“G-Men,” “Bullets or Ballots”) and redeemed criminals (“High Sierra.”). It is safe to say that Warner Brothers with its penchant for gritty urban dramas and psychological complexity pushed at the edge of the Code more than any other studio, and there are some exceptions where the coarseness and brutality of the earlier films sneak through (“The Roaring Twenties”), as well as films in which the gangsters are pitted in doomed confrontations with their betters and served their just rewards (“Angels With Dirty Faces,” “Dead End”).

Both Robinson and Cagney continued to mine their tough guy personas. Robinson became an accomplished character actor in films as diverse as “Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet,” “The Sea Wolf,” “Double Indemnity,” and “Our Vines Have Tender Grapes.” Cagney became one of the most successful and beloved stars in Hollywood with films such as “The Fighting 69th,” “The Strawberry Blonde,” and “Yankee Doodle Dandy.”

In 1948 and 1949, as the power of the production code was waning, both Robinson and Cagney returned to the genre and the type of characters that had made them famous – Robinson as Johnny Rocco in “Key Largo,” and Cagney as Cody Jarrett in “White Heat.” Both can be seen as aged extensions of their previous performances in “Little Caesar” and “The Public Enemy.” And whereas “Key Largo” is a great entertainment from director John Huston in the vein of the post-code Warner Brothers films of the later 1930’s and 1940’s, “White Heat” is an unexpected and surprising revelation.



Directed with little of the polish, gloss or civility of most studio pictures of the time by Raoul Walsh, “White Heat” follows the exploits of a rampantly paranoid aging criminal and sociopath with a mother fixation and a sadistic streak, a character that Cagney plays with no sentimentality, but with an enormous amount of energy and magnetism. It is a character unlike almost any other that had headlined a motion picture since the advent of the Production Code, or perhaps even before. It is the strength of Cagney’s charisma, as well as the comparable blandness that Edmond O’Brien brings to his portrayal of Federal Agent and protagonist Hank Fallon, that adds interest and even sympathy to such a reprehensible but utterly fascinating character.

Why was “White Heat” one of my Dad’s favorite movies? I believe that while B Westerns were his genre of choice as a young boy, the Warner Brothers crime films of the late 30’s and 40’s, with their hard boiled characters and gritty environments, were the favorites of his adolescence. I think it is also the uniqueness of Cagney’s character and portrayal, as Dad was always attracted to movies with a new and different take on their stories and characters. But in the days before VCR’s and DVR’s, it was a memorable moment or even line that lodged a movie into memory. And “White Heat” has both. One of the most harrowing moments and unrestrained performances in film is when Jarrett, serving out a prison term for a crime he did not commit but instead used as an alibi for a worse crime he did commit, hears of his mother’s death, and goes literally berserk. It is a tour-de-force for Cagney.



But no one who sees “White Heat” will ever forget Jarrett’s final line, nor the circumstances surrounding it – “Top of the World, Ma.” My Dad certainly did not.



Watch “White Heat” on Turner Classic Movies, Saturday November 14 at 10 am Eastern (9 am Central) and Monday, November 30 at 1:30 pm Eastern (12:30 pm Central)


Buy White Heat at Amazon.com

© 2009 Edward Bowen