... it’s absolutely ferocious and Cagney gives a blindingly unhinged performance as an emotionally unstable and mentally unbalanced Jarrett, putting his dancer’s moves to work in a riveting physical performance.

| Nov 16, 2024

It has a cast worthy of a super-criminal, with such supporting players as Virginia Mayo, Edmond O’Brien and Margaret Wycherly. What these and the others are up to is undeniably alive with action.

| Apr 23, 2024

Cagney is the whole works in this show, although the story is excellent and the supporting cast is fine. But it’s Cagney who keeps the audience cowed... This Cagney picture is a gangster picture to end all gangster pictures.

| Apr 23, 2024

James Cagney gives an astounding, realistic, terrific portrayal of a gangster as menacing and as ruthless as any ever played on the screen as the star of White Heat.

| Apr 23, 2024

White Heat, made by Warners, under Raoul Walsh's direction and suggested by a Virginia Kellogg story, is a highly exciting cops and robbers melodrama. One scene of violence follows another, until the thrilling climax.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 23, 2024

This is taut, high-powered drama, with trigger-quick action following an adroitly drawn, if melodramatic, suspense pattern.

| Apr 23, 2024

Here's a taut crime melodrama, with punch and pace, which is very, likely to start a whole new cycle of such pictures... it looks like Director Raoul Walsh and the practiced Mr. Cagney have put the public enemy back in business again.

| Apr 23, 2024

This is a film of action and suspense... one of the finest in a long time... in case we didn't realize before that crime doesn't pay, this is the cincher.

| Apr 23, 2024

A rousing reminder of the gory old gangster period (celluloid variety) in which Jimmy and his bosses gave fans their money's worth of chills and excitement.

| Apr 23, 2024

White Heat is cunningly tooled for maximum shock effect.

| Apr 23, 2024

This is the gangster thriller at its very best.

| Apr 23, 2024

Besides the great performance of Cagney, there are outstanding portrayals by Margaret Wycherly as his hateful mother and by Edmond O'Brien as the federal agent. Virginia Mayo is properly hard and treacherous as Jarrett's wife.

| Apr 23, 2024

Cagney aside (which isn’t so easy, since he’s the star of this movie), [White Heat is engrossing and at times exciting. I found particularly interesting the use made of electronics by the Los Angeles cops in tracking criminals.

| Apr 23, 2024

Whether you like the fellow or not, Cagney wins your admiration in White Heat, a fast-moving crime picture that doesn't give an inch right up to its dramatic finish.

| Apr 23, 2024

[Virginia Mayo is] terrific in the role. Beautiful and as cruel and ruthless as the worst of them. The girl is a natural in this sort of role.

| Apr 23, 2024

Although Mr. Raoul Walsh has directed the movie at an explosive gait, White Heat strangely enough has a number of dead spots, and frequently becomes just a little monotonous.

| Apr 23, 2024

In its way, Mr. Cagney's portrayal is a very good one. He makes this monster seem real; and the picture, as a whole, is free from that tendency to glamorize crooks which is so often found in Hollywood melodrama.

| Apr 23, 2024

It is violent melodrama keyed to such a pitch that at times it almost overreaches itself.

| Apr 23, 2024

Insofar as production, direction and acting are concerned, this is a top crime melodrama; but it can hardly be classified as entertainment, for it is one of the most vicious and demoralizing pictures ever produced, despite the crime-does-not-pay ending.

| Apr 22, 2024

White Heat is a first-rate thriller. It is of an appalling violence.

| Apr 22, 2024