A man (James Cagney) loves his mother (Margaret Wycherly). Everyone else can go to Hell. This is White Heat, a combination of a gangster flick, a heist movie, a prison breakout thriller, and a backstabbing romance. James Cagney’s acting prowess is on full display in this movie where he battles prison guards, old friends, cops, and debilitating migraines. His close-up when he discovers the undercover cop (Edmond O’Brian) is mesmerizing. It’s the kind of shot that’s become so rare it’ll make you sit up in your seat. The final line, “Made it, Ma! Top of the World!” is an Old Hollywood classic and even better in context. Sure, some moments don’t age well — when Jarrett (Cagney) is punching his way through prison guards, it almost feels like a spoof — but the movie is 75 years old. It’s an absolute must-watch for the cinephile and gangster movie aficionado.

Saw this on Movie Night at college in early 70's. It was already an "old movie" that could be rented on actual film reels for cheap dough. We saw 'em all - Casablanca, Maltese Falcon, etc. We got into the big lecture hall for either 50c or free - it's been a long time. There was one projector so there was an automatic intermission between reels! In any event, it was a hoot even back then - the overacting, the "technology" the authorities used to bust the bad guys, the pseudo psychology, etc. I'd say today it's just a relic of what passed for mass entertainment in that era. There was a shift in attitudes from the earlier gangster shoot-em-up's of the 1930's; here crime was depicted as the product of psychosis which an enlightened society could treat and thus permanently rid itself of antisocial behavior. I give it One and a Half Stars for entertainment in a so-bad-it's-good way.

James Cagney is truly a one of a kind actor. There is no one in the history of cinema quite like him. I am obviously very impressed with his performance in White Heat. It's a classic film that I highly recommend. 94/100

My favorite Cagney movie. NRJ.

Cagney is GREAT! Top Of The World

James Cagney’s greatest performance in one of the greatest crime films ever made

Hard not to enjoy for Cagney alone.

Having never see a James Cagney movie I decided to start with this. He clearly was a great actor even in today's standards. It is pretty comical in parts, there is a bit where he one punches about 4 officers in a row in the prison. A decent plot and great support round up this movie. Definitely one to watch before you die, it only took me 40 years to watch.

A masterclass in pacing. Not a second of this movie is wasted, each scene only adds intriguing complications to the plot. Cagney is exactly the kind of terrifying energy the movie needed.

One of the classics! The plot shows how psychological criminal behavior can run in the DNA. This parent may even be worse than Cagney's character, as who knows how much is DNA & how much is poor parenting.

White Heat marked something of a reluctant comeback for James Cagney. The popular actor with the boyish face and brash charm had made his name in the 1930s, when he appeared in gangsters movies such as The Public Enemy and Angels with Dirty Faces. However Cagney had grown weary of being typecast in this kind of role. "I'm sick of carrying a gun and beating up women," he declared. Unfortunately the success of other projects such as Yankee Doodle Dandy was not easily maintained. By the late 1940s, Cagney had appeared in a number of commercially unsuccessful films. So in 1949, the actor returned to Warner Brothers and the gangster movie because he needed money, and because his box office appeal was starting to fade. White Heat proved to be a reasonable success, and helped to put Cagney's fortunes back on the mend. Nonetheless the actor did not personally think much of this movie, which was made in a hurry and on the cheap by veteran director, Raoul Walsh. I cannot locate the quotation, but I am sure that someone said of Walsh that his movies have a fast pace because he was in a hurry to complete them. Whatever the case, Walsh was a talented and hard-working director who knew how to get the best out of a good film. White Heat is possibly his best work, and it is now thought to be one of the greatest gangster movies of all time. Walsh had a good sense for gripping action scenes, and he realised that Cagney was his most bankable asset. It may seem strange for me to say it now when subsequent gangster movies have become far more violent than White Heat, but I remember being shocked by the movie when I first saw it as a child. For the first few minutes of the film, there is no reassuring moral universe where someone steps in to save the day. Innocent unarmed men are casually slaughtered. Honour among thieves is missing, and Jarrett is ruthless about despatching his own gang members. The law seems helpless to prevent these criminals, and its leading representative nearly loses his life. It is only after this opening that the film settles down, and the story begins to follow the efforts of the police to track Cody Jarrett. White Heat is a curious hybrid, containing elements of numerous genres and sub-genres. It is primarily a gangster movie, with the lead characters being based on real criminals such as Francis Cowley and Ma Barker. The movie is also a film noir, a heist movie, a prison movie, a prison break movie and a police procedure movie, following the investigations into the mobsters in the familiar semi-documentary style that was common at the time. Despite many years of playing the gangster, Cagney was playing a more complicated character than usual, and he rose to the challenge. Indeed Cagney contributed to making his role more complex. It is said that it was Cagney's own idea to make Cody Jarrett psychotic, and that Cagney partly based his performance on his experience of his father's alcoholic rages. Cagney freely suggested ideas to improve the film. Early in the movie he improvised a seizure where Jarrett falls on the floor in front of his fellow criminals. It was Cagney's ideas that Jarrett knock his wife off a chair for mocking his mother. The actor also beefed up the story's Oedipal undercurrents by having Cody sit on his mother's lap when he wants to be soothed. In the scene where Jarrett is reunited with his wife after his prison break, Cagney hid in a different spot than agreed so that Virginia Mayo's shock at seeing him would be genuine. Cody Jarrett is one of the great cinema villains, a man who is dangerously unstable and barely holding onto his sanity. He is a remorseless killer when occasion demands, and he lacks any redeeming features. Even his whole-hearted devotion to his mother has an unhealthy and incestuous tinge to it. The movie's most famous quotation, "Made it, Ma! Top of the world!" is associated with something that she often says to him, and it is used ahead of an event that will bring the film to an explosive conclusion. While White Heat includes many familiar plot tropes of the crime movie of that time, there is something tongue-in-cheek in the way that Raoul Walsh uses them. The rough and violent mobster is a mummy's boy. The rival gangster is a coward who lets his moll shoot an elderly woman in the back. The femme fatale spits out her gum before kissing her man, and tries to betray him one last time by flirting with the leading cop who simply responds: "No deal – lock her up!" Nonetheless the humour of White Heat does not cheapen the suspense and excitement of the story, or reduce the action to bathos. It is a harsh and tough-edged thriller that builds to a suspenseful climax. I wrote a longer appreciation of White Heat on my blog page if you would like to read more: https://themoviescreenscene.wordpress.com/2019/08/04/white-heat-1949/

This was several terrific movies all rapped into one - heist thriller, gangster flick, undercover story, doomed romance, prisonbreak movie. Seemed like it has lend inspiration to everything from Bonnie and Clyde, Reservoir Dogs, The Departed, The Great Train Robbery and Sopranos. What a ride!

I just revisited this film and I'm glad I did. James Cagney dominates every scene with one of the great performances. Raoul Walsh's direction is perfect, with the pace of the film and Cagney in perfect sync. He makes Cody Jarrett an almost sympathetic psychopath, if that makes sense. Finally, a nod must go to Virginia Mayo, as unlikable as Cody, maybe even more so, which seems to make her fear jolting, Really, this film is one of the greatest crime films ever.

I've got no trouble admitting that my tastes are pretty conventional when it comes to film. If popular opinion is particularly strong on a performance or production, it usually matches up with my own opinion, more or less; but that makes the relatively few disagreements that I have on certain aspects of the industry stand out a bit. To that end, I'm not convinced that White Heat is the unparalleled masterpiece that so many seem to claim it is. Cagney is the undeniable focal point of the film, enticingly off-kilter, violent, and unpredictable, but far too often the plot doesn't actually focus on him, instead trying to entice the audience with scenes dedicated to the far less compelling police force trying to corral him, including painfully slow explanations of 1940s tracking technology and the like. The film seems convinced that its viewers are there to give their support to the morally righteous officers of the law, but that's a miscalculation; they're there for Cagney, whether to wallow in his insanity and the tension it creates, or even to root for him as an antihero. When the film allows him the screen, the lead eats it up with great presence and a heaping helping of lovely tropey dialogue; his character has some complexity to it with its balance of gratuitous violence and emotional dependence that adds a lot for Cagney to chew on, so much so that the shortcomings in the rest of the film are all the more evident. The film is still good, don't get me wrong, but it's difficult to rectify what's actually on the screen with the film's hefty reputation. (3.5/5)

James Cagney at his quintessential. See this and see what made him famous and what film was like back then.

Classic, tough, trend setting, but we’ve still seen it all before. Cagney does his usual routine but amps it up to wild heights. He’s too old for this part. Imagine it being done by a much younger man, as a violent mama’s boy. If you can get past the fact that Cody has zero redeeming qualities, and Cagney’s schtick... it’s great.

James Cagney great. Crime boss escapes prison. Tries to rob big 'chemical plant' about 198th& Figueroa. 1949. No LB nor Harbor Fwy. Lots re radio station in San Bernardino, traveling lots streets and intersections from LaCanada, thru Alhambra, and lots more I'v been to many times. Key [hrase at end 'Top of the World!' Never saw, nor heard of, until late nite tv, Movie!channel, 12.5.19.

A psychopathic criminal with a mother complex makes a daring break from prison and leads his old gang in a chemical plant payroll heist. Shortly after the plan takes place, events take a crazy turn. The simple fact is that Mr. Cagney has made his return to a gangster role in one of the most explosive pictures that he or anyone has ever played.Raoul Walsh's Freudian film is one of the fastest and toughest crime-gangster films ever made. Its archetypal influence on later films like Goodfellas and the Al Pacino Scarface is striking, even if we can never again experience how new and bold it was back in its day....

A masterclass in pacing. Not a second of this movie is wasted, each scene only adds intriguing complications to the plot. Cagney is exactly the kind of terrifying energy the movie needed.

A superior representation of the extremities in criminal behavior and advancement and cunning tactics of law enforcement.