James Cagney Scorches the Screen in White Heat

From 1949, Warner Brothers’ blistering, noir-laced White Heat served as James Cagney‘s return to the crime dramas he gained fame in during the 1930’s, while establishing his career as one of the screen’s preeminent tough guys. After a decade away from the genre, largely to help the WWII effort in a series of patriotic films, including his biggest success in Yankee Doodle Dandy, wherein his indelible portrayal of George M. Cohan led to his sole Best Actor Oscar, Cagney’s forceful presence as an anti-hero proved undiminished in Heat. Director Raoul Walsh expertly helms the production, maintaining a riveting pace that utilizes a taut, first-rate screenplay by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts (with an uncredited Cagney also possibly contributing to the adaptation of Virginia Kellogg’s original story) which blends exciting set pieces with a good deal of detail concerning police procedures of the era, allowing viewers to gain both a time-capsule view of the technology and methods involved in fighting crime circa 1949, while witnessing a prime example of how effectively the Studio Era could properly showcase a star in his top form and genre.

After a few lackluster years in film following his Dandy peak, Cagney geared up for one of his most remarkable and daring performances as the tough, unbalanced gangster Cody Jarrett. Unlike earlier Cagney criminals found in his star-making turn in The Public Enemy and his fantastic Oscar-nominated work in Angels with Dirty Faces, the star fearlessly projects nary a trace of likable characteristics, holding nothing back in depicting the psychotic mindset that guides Cody’s appalling actions. Cagney’s intensity throughout the film is frightening, allowing him to make Jarrett one of the most unsettling and hard-to-forget villains in the cinema, with scenes such as Cody jovially eliminating an adversary or, in one of the movie’s great moments, becoming unhinged in prison after learning of his mother’s death. Watching Cagney in Heat, one can deem Cagney an ideal fit for Hannibal Lector, if the part existed a few eras earlier; his spellbinding work as Cody aptly leads to one of the most spectacular, famous and (literally) explosive exits in the movies.

Virginia Mayo spent the majority of her career as a highly decorative, competent leading lady in a series dramas, comedies, musicals and action/adventure films, but there’s a special spark found in her work on the rare occasions she was granted the chance to play against type as a bad girl. Similar to her expert, impactful performance as Dana Andrew’s cold wife in The Best Years of Our Lives, as Verna, Cody’s self-serving mate in Heat, Mayo again vividly displays her knack for depicting ruthlessness in a memorable, unabashed manner. Unlike many of her contemporaries, who would shy away from delineating the more odious aspects of a Verna and try to instill some likable traits into such a role, Mayo appears to thrive playing up Verna’s insensitive nature with a great degree of skill and creativity. She clearly illustrates key attributes of Verna’s persona, such as her at turns playful, comic, sarcastic and conniving behavior, allowing Verna her lasting place among film noir’s great vixens.

After starting in films a decade before, Edmond O’Brien continued his upward career trajectory with strong work as Hank Fallon, who goes undercover with Jarrett’s gang in an attempt to stop their nefarious activities. It’s a tricky role, in that the actor has to convince the audience he could go toe-to-toe with Jarrett and also fool him regarding his true identity in the process, with Cody played by a never-more-in-his-element Cagney, but O’Brien conveys the proper amount of stoicism and intelligence to bring the role off with admirable aplomb. Steve Cochran also makes a vivid impression as “Big Ed,” a co-gangster who carries a dislike for Cody and a strong, reciprocated yen for Verna, leading to complications for all three. Cochran has a knack for mixing boyish charm with a charged sexuality in his unsympathetic roles (on paper at least- see Storm Warning for possibly Cochran’s most definitive work in this mode), somehow allowing him to convey both danger and sensitivity in a distinct, beguiling fashion. Margaret Wycherly also scores heavily in perhaps her most definitive role as “Ma” Jarrett, vividly depicting the tough, immoral nature that would influence her son to choose a career path as a hardened criminal, while also working in synch with Cagney to illustrate the tenacious, unnatural mother/son bond that ties Cody to Ma in a highly loyal and emotional manner.  

The popular and critical success of White Heat allowed Cagney to return to his rightful place among the screen’s most gifted and exciting stars, as well as convincing him to take on further roles in the gangster mode, specifically in the following year’s also-intense and lurid Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye and his terrific, Oscar-nominated work opposite Doris Day in 1955’s Love Me or Leave Me. As for White Heat, it remains a supreme potboiler of substantial merit: fueled by one of the key performances of Cagney’s career, inspired direction by Walsh and committed, superb work by the talented cast and crew, this landmark of 1940’s cinema holds up as one of the finest examples to be found among Warner Brothers great crime dramas; lovers of film noir and classic movies can’t go wrong adding White Heat to their “Most Wanted” lists.  

 P.S.: I recently completed a YouTube tribute video to the awesome screen accomplishments of James Cagney. The video can be viewed here.