White Heat

1949 Directed by Raoul Walsh

Pick up the pieces folks, Jimmy's in action again!

A psychopathic criminal with a mother complex makes a daring break from prison and then leads his old gang in a chemical plant payroll heist. After the heist, events take a crazy turn.

James Cagney Virginia Mayo Edmond O'Brien Margaret Wycherly Steve Cochran John Archer Wally Cassell Fred Clark Paul Guilfoyle Ford Rainey Robert Foulk Ian MacDonald Robert Osterloh Joel Allen Claudia Barrett Ray Bennett Marshall Bradford Chet Brandenburg John Butler Robert Carson Bill Cartledge Leo Cleary Fred Coby Tom Coleman G. Pat Collins Herschel Daugherty Charles Ferguson Art Foster Eddie Foster Show All…

Alternative Titles

Fúria Sanguinária, Valkoinen hehku, Bloeddorstig, L'enfer est à lui, Maschinenpistolen, O megalos amartolos, Alma negra, Бяла жега, Fehér izzás, Bialy zar, Cehennem Alevi, Белое каление

drama crime thriller

114 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Todd Gaines ★★★★ 19

James Cagney as a crazy gangsta who loves his Ma, tolerates his wife, and lives to rob and kill. Choo choo train. Dangerous thermos. Leap of faith. The way James Cagney holds a pistol. Kinda-hot water. Sexy snoring. The Invisible Man? Accidental discharge. Poco loco. Ma knows best. Whiskey cures everything. The way James Cagney establishes dominance. Doctor Death? The ABC game. Ma drives like Gos in Drive. Undercover Wild Freddie Sykes. Holy Fuck! The Raid 2 copied White Heat. Lip reader. A reindeer? Real motherfuckers don't need vaccination shots. Mirror communication. Close call. Crazy spell. Worst lawyer ever. Terrible news. Jailhouse meltdown. Dr. Lecter's straight jacket. Yucky soup. Escaping like a boss. Old school car phones are the shit.…
Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★★½

89/100
Pure pleasure. Cagney's such a force of nature that I'd forgotten how much of the movie is told from the cops' perspective, and how much delectable suspense Walsh and the writers milk from the undercover scenario. Even our current Golden Age Of TV Drama, in which plotting has (thank christ) become respectable again, rarely offers bits as choice as Cagney opening the envelope containing the framed photo of O'Brien's fake wife and putting it out in the cell as a gag, to see what O'Brien does when he notices...if he notices, we suddenly realize, 'cause O'Brien's never seen this woman in his life. There's even a lengthy tutorial on how to use three separate cars to trail somebody without…
Review by Paul Elliott ★★★★★

There are very few films that are as prudent and as sustainedly controlled in their storytelling as Raoul Walsh’s White Heat. Starring James Cagney in a powerhouse performance as Arthur "Cody" Jarrett, it delivers a volatile completion to Warner Brother's rotation of gangster movies which started in 1931 with Little Caesar. It abides as possibly the pinnacle performance in Cagney’s lengthy and diverse career, as well as being the movie that contains the frequently misquoted "Made it, Ma! Top of the world!". It’s all riveted together beautifully by Walsh's vehement and polished direction and unhesitatingly stands as one of the most pre-eminent of all gangster epics.
Review by Ethan Colburn ★★★★ 2

Great Cagney performance in a pretty gripping gangster movie.
Cagney returns to the gangster performances that he became known for in the 30s, and reunited with Raoul Walsh, who both seem to get each other perfectly. Cagney plays a charismatic gangster, who is electric and evil, and who you find yourself loving throughout despite his actions. The chase scenes in this also hold up.
You sort of wish this film had the freedom from the Hays code it deserves, where it could show a grittier prison and allow for more creative freedom, however given the time it’s quite intense.
Review by Cadinho93 ★★★★★

"Made it, Ma! Top of the world!"
White Heat is a perfect gangster film. Cody Jarrett (James Cagney) is at his best and reminiscent to the "Joker" in many ways, provides enough entertainment and action. Raoul Walsh's direction crackles with energy. After the exciting beginning of a train heist and its aftermath, I felt the film momentum did flag in the middle (ever so slightly), but it rebounds and the finale builds to an almost unbearable level of tension, culminating in one of the most jaw-dropping parting shots in film history. Overall, White Heat is one of the absolute essential cornerstones of film noir.
Review by sakana1 ★★★★ 7

"We'd like to do Ma Barker and have the gangster with a mother complex and play it against Freudian implications that she's driving him to do these things, and he's driving himself to self-destruction. Play it like a Greek tragedy." They said, "Fellas ... ?" We said, "Believe us, it will work. And there's only one man who can play this and make the rafters rock."*
One of the keys to virtually every James Cagney performance is the warmth of his characters. Even when we dislike the men he plays, they have a charm and a dynamism to them that is undeniable, and very nearly impossible to resist. As Cody Jarrett in White Heat, though, Cagney does something completely different,…
Review by chavel ★★★★½

Compulsive with blowing away expendable men, set off by the most casual of backstabbers, the outlaw Cody Jarrett lets himself be quick to sudden rage. Betrayed by turncoats, betrayed by his two-timing wife, betrayed by the universe in general as brought on in the form of splitting headaches (“it’s like having a red-hot buzzsaw inside my head”), Cody’s only solace is Ma, whom heals with that mothering touch of hers and those devil whispers of barbarous encouragement in his ear. That beats anything his wife can give him, or anything money can supply to him. By the end of this classic unhinged film noir tale, Cody is up above chemical plant tanks lit on fire, and he’s such a screw-loose…
Review by watchacid ★★★★★

Just one of the greatest... ever. Amazing how this flick from 1949 has aged so, so, so incredibly well - just like The Treasure of the Sierra Made, released one year prior to White Heat. These just get better every single time you watch them.
Review by K. Austin Collins

i too have had to replace motherly affection with the attention of strapping, handsome but ultimately deceitful men

this is worth studying for the interpersonal scams alone
Review by Thomas McCallum ★★★½ 2

Performances : 8.1/10
Story : 7.6/10
Production : 6.5/10
Overall : 7.4/10
White Heat was surprisingly well acted. I'm not really sure what I was expecting, I've only seen James Cagney in Angels With Dirty Faces and he was pretty solid in that, but for whatever reason I went in to this not expecting much. Cagney proved me wrong. He was fantastic as Cody Jarett, a man bothered by severe headaches and who may or may not be slowly losing his mind. One scene in particular where he's dragged out of the prison cafeteria was especially impressive. Also impressive was Virginia Mayo, who played his not-so-loving wife.
The thing that stood out to me the most in this film were…
Review by Mr. DuLac ★★★★★ 2

Made it, Ma! Top of the world!
-Cody Jarrett
James Cagney left Warner Bros in 1942 to form his own production company and swore that he would never star in another gangster film. After being unable to produce a single hit film, Cagney not only returned to Warner Bros, but his first film for the studio was a gangster film. This was hardly him returning with his tail between his legs though. Cagney gives possibly the most memorable performance of his career instead of simply revisiting a role he had already done in numerous films prior.
After starring in countless gangster films for almost 20 years, beginning with one of the genre's most influential films of all time, The Public…
Review by Sam Van Hallgren ★★★★★ 2

You know how we all spent our youths laughing at Christian Slater for making a career out of a bad Jack Nicholson impression? (Not entirely fair, I realize, but stick with me.) I can imagine folks in the late 60s saying the same thing about Nicholson ripping off Jimmy Cagney. I thought a lot of Nicholson's Joker during this movie's famous (and just plain awesome) finale.

Recent reviews

Review by Cadinho93 ★★★★★

"Made it, Ma! Top of the world!"
White Heat is a perfect gangster film. Cody Jarrett (James Cagney) is at his best and reminiscent to the "Joker" in many ways, provides enough entertainment and action. Raoul Walsh's direction crackles with energy. After the exciting beginning of a train heist and its aftermath, I felt the film momentum did flag in the middle (ever so slightly), but it rebounds and the finale builds to an almost unbearable level of tension, culminating in one of the most jaw-dropping parting shots in film history. Overall, White Heat is one of the absolute essential cornerstones of film noir.
Review by McKenzie Power ★★★★★ 1

Hank Fallon (Edmond O'Brien): "A hoodlum turns himself in on a phony rap and beats the gas chamber. I'll betcha he's thumbing his nose at Uncle Sam right now and loving it. Jarrett outsmarted you!"
I see a Cagney gangster film, I immediately pick it up from the library shelf. James Cagney is probably now one of my favorite actors of all time; sharp-witted, dead-pan, and devastatingly gangster-lookin' as hell with the square jaw. The guy could swindle me out of $5 and I'd owe him $10.
This was a Cagney flick I wanted to catch for some time. After watching Angels with Dirty Faces, I was curious to see what else he was thrown in by Warner and see…
Review by Mark Thummerer ★★★★

An exceptionally well-made crime drama and psychological thriller featuring a terrifying and entertaining performance from James Cagney.
Review by kedarbryan ★★★★★

First movie in a while — and what a classic. Outstanding! Cagney is amazing. Top of the world!
Review by juzzyc ★★★★

Jimmy Cagney vs 1949 GPS Technology
Review by JC13 ★★★½

"Made it, Ma! Top of the world!"
A classic I've been meaning to watch for quite some time. As expected, I liked it. James Cagney is very good in the lead role and he has a good supporting cast around him. The film is engaging throughout and has some standout moments scattered here and there. Good stuff.
7.5/10
Review by Plan 9 Podcast ★★★½

Una película bastante trepidante que combina venganza, bastante acción y atracos. Todo esto es así hasta que llega el tercer acto y se estira como chicle. No obstante tiene un final explosivo en más de un sentido.
Cagney tiene una gran actuación aquí, y es uno de esos actores que ya no hay.
Me parece que es una película excepcionalmente bien escrita y refinada gracias a los toques de Walsh y el mismísimo Cagney. De los mejores noir clásicos.
Review by Mike Topper ★★★★

Part of Decades Challenge – 1940s
Review by sevenno ★★★★

Cody Jarrett is nasty, Verna snores, the government has tracking guys who can do geometry. Good stuff!
Review by Reuben van Hoeve ★★★½

I wanted this to make me feel manly. Like I could take on a room full of slightly oversized capybaras. As it stands right now I feel like I could open up one of those extra tough kettle chip bags with my bare hands, which is still something.
Review by Alma ⸸🌱

cf.
letterboxd.com/9413/list/mother-and-son/
Review by vhstracking ★★★★

Tracking down the titles that I haven’t seen from Danny Peary’s Cult Movies 2 book has included a lot of Hollywood classics like White Heat (1949) directed by Raoul Walsh and starring James Cagney, which was a critical and commercial success upon release. Nowadays, its known more for its a heavily referenced iconic closing line, which you cannot avoid with how it has been absorbed into popular culture throughout the decades. James Cagney’s acting style might seem old-timey and over-the-top, but his turn as mother-loving criminal psychopath Cody Jarnett is a straight line to Al Pacino in Scarface or Jack Nicholson in The Departed in regards to a continual echo of scenery-chewery larger-than-life performances that go hand-in-hand with the crime…