Director: Raoul Walsh
Writers: Ivan Goff, Ben Roberts, adapting the story by Virginia Kellogg
Producer: Louis F. Edelman
Cast: James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O’Brien, Margaret Wycherly, John Archer, Steve Cochran, Wally Cassell, Fred Clark, (and uncredited cast members) Robert Ossterloh, Paul Guilfoyle, Ford Rainey, Ian MacDonald
In the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Arthur “Cody” Jarrett (James Cagney) and his small gang rob a mail train, killing several men in the process. U.S. Treasury agents, led by Phillip Evans (John Archer), find the body of one Jarrett gang member (Ford Rainey) and connect him to the robbery. To establish an alibi and avoid being nabbed for a federal crime, Jarrett turns himself in for another robbery he arranged to be committed in another state during his mail train heist. Jarrett’s plan is to do just a couple of years in prison for the lesser crime, and then he and his gang can spend the mail train loot when he is released. T-man Evans plants one of his men, Hank Fallon (Edmond O’Brien), as a convict in Jarrett’s prison to try and ingratiate himself with Jarrett to learn where the stolen mail train money is and get the evidence needed to bust Jarrett for the crime. Meanwhile, “Ma” Jarrett (Margaret Wycherly) informs her son that his wife, Verna (Virgina Mayo), and Jarrett gang member “Big Ed” Somers (Steve Cochran) are plotting against him.
The Flashback Fanatic movie review
That little tough guy, James Cagney, was synonymous with the gangster film genre in the 1930s. The former vaudevillian made his name acting in such Warners Bros. crime films as Sinners’ Holiday (1930) and Public Enemy (1931). He would also appear in comedies and even get the chance to show off his dancing skills in 1932’s Taxi!
While Cagney became one of Hollywood’s biggest money-makers during the Great Depression, he did not appreciate how he and many other talents at Warner Bros. Pictures were treated. Head of the studio, Jack L. Warner, referred to his stubbornly principled star as “that little bastard.” Gagney would use Yiddish to cuss out Warner, leaving the studio boss to ask others what he was being called. The good old days were certainly a lot more colorful before HR policies.
Cagney had walked out of Warner Bros. more than once. After the success of his Oscar-winning performance in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Cagney decided to leave the studio to start his own independent film production company. After making two films with limited success and a third one that was a financial disaster (1948’s The Time of Your Life), Cagney was enticed back to Warner Bros. for one of his greatest pictures, the noirish crime thriller White Heat.
The movie opens with the mail train robbery by the Jarrett gang and never stops moving. Between Jarrett’s evasions from justice, the treasury agents’ pursuit, a federal undercover man trying to join up with Jarrett’s gang, and the treachery of Jarrett’s wife and her lover in the Jarrett gang, we are all waiting for Cagney’s murderous mama’s boy Cody Jarrett to raise hell settling scores.
At 50 years of age, James Cagney was still a dynamo playing the villainous lead in White Heat. Of course, Cagney was not only the biggest star in the film but also returning to a gangster role of the type that had earned him his early success. Cagney tweaked his role to be even more extreme. There is not only a flawed morality in Cagney’s Cody Jarrett, but some psychological quirks that manifest as sudden, severe headaches and an obvious relish he takes gunning down his enemies.
The only one in his gang Cody Jarrett trusts is his devoted mother, “Ma” Jarrett (Margaret Wycherly). She has Cody’s back when he is incapacitated by his headaches, and she is all too aware of the treachery possible from the rest of the Jarrett gang. Ma Jarrett may have been inspired by the probably exaggerated reputation of Ma Barker, the matriarch of the 1930s Barker-Karpis Gang. They were public enemies responsible for a series of robberies, kidnappings, and murders.
Virginia Mayo was another vaudevillian that made it big in the movies. By the time of White Heat, she was at the peak of her fame and had just begun a six-year series of films at Warner Bros. As Verna, Mayo may be the beauty to Cagney’s beast, but her beauty is only skin deep. She is introduced as a perfectly made-up gun moll snoring away in the bedroom of the country cabin hideout for the Jarrett gang. She grumbles about her boredom while on the lam, but she provides Cody Jarrett with the kind of fun he needs. However, Verna has been playing up to another member of the gang that is as impatient as she is to live it up with the loot.
Steve Cochran immediately projects unsavory confidence as “Big Ed” Somers. Perhaps his character’s tryst with Virginia Mayo’s Verna was a just reward for Cochran having already appeared in four of Mayo’s earlier films. Cochran’s Big Ed is champing at the bit to take over Cody Jarrett’s gang and girl. Big Ed’s ambition is obvious to Jarrett. The furtive glances Big Ed trades with Jarrett’s wife Verna let us in on their affair. Once Cody Jarrett begins his short stretch in the pen, Big Ed plans to take Jarrett’s place permanently.
The good guys are U.S. Treasury agents trying to nail Jarrett. They are led by John Archer as Phillip Evans. Archer’s Evans is dedicated. Period. His only character distinction is his always-in-control manner and a great voice. That voice may explain why Archer starred as The Shadow on that crimefighter’s radio program from 1944 to 1945. Archer also deserves credit for fathering beautiful actress Anne Archer.
Edmond O’Brien plays the other featured T-man hero in White Heat: undercover specialist Hank Fallon. He assumes the identity of Vic Pardo, a con sent to the same prison cell as Cody Jarrett. It is interesting watching Fallon try to break the ice with Jarrett without seeming too eager. Jarrett is wary of letting anyone get too close to him except his bad ole ma. There is a fair amount of suspense created as Fallon must avoid being exposed as an imposter. Beyond Fallon’s law enforcement objective, we learn nothing about this T-man, either, except that he has an interest in fishing.
I find it interesting that the representatives of law and order, without any emotional depth, are meant to engage the audience’s support. Sure, these T-men do their important duty, but it is the institutions they work for that earn our respect. That is certainly an admirable attitude if the just standards for those institutions are maintained. This was certainly indicative of a post-Great Depression-and-World War II-era mindset, which had reverence for the agencies that should maintain social stability and prosperity.
The real emotional pull for the audience in White Heat is the almost morbid fascination we must have for the conflicts and duplicity within the criminal element. Since this is a James Cagney-starring film, that interest is wisely focused on his Cody Jarrett character. We may root for justice to be served to Cody Jarrett, but we also can’t help but thrill a bit to his remorseless violence and seeing what further actions his trauma may drive him to. This role is a fine example of why many actors find it more satisfying to play villains. Sins are more exciting to perform than virtues; actors can let out their inner animal that social norms urge us to keep caged.
White Heat is usually classified as film noir, yet it is hardly typical of the genre. While it has plenty of crime happening, it is strangely lacking in that crucial film noir element of temptation and moral degradation. All the main characters are established as being either good or evil, and they do not deviate. We are never in doubt as to what any of these characters are after or capable of. Even Jarrett’s unfaithful wife Verna is almost immediately known to us as completely untrustworthy. Jarrett has never really seemed to have much trust or respect for her. Our only surprise about Verna is a reveal of the violence she commits. The femme fatale’s purpose of many noir films is fulfilled here by Hank Fallon. He is the betrayer trying to gain Jarrett’s trust and camaraderie through duplicity. This happens during a particularly vulnerable time for Jarrett, yet Fallon’s moral righteousness is never in doubt, and we realize the validity of his tactics.
White Heat was a financial and critical success that re-established James Cagney as a box-office draw. It has become one of the films always gracing greatest movies lists, and it has certainly influenced many crime-centric films ever since. After watching White Heat, I can’t help but see a bit of Cagney’s Cody Jarrett bubbling up though Jack Nicholson’s Joker in Batman (1989). Some of White Heat’s themes and situations recur and are reworked in Reservoir Dogs (1992). These observations in no way diminish those latter films. They just demonstrate that a great movie can have a lasting impact.
