White Heat

White Heat lives up to its reputation as possibly the best gangster movie Hollywood made. Aside from its “Made it Ma, top of the world!” fireball ending, there’s James Cagney as Cody Jarrett, an unhinged killer with Oedipal urges strong enough that his mother is a member of his gang (TCM showed the movie on Mother’s Day).  

Cody Jarrett makes people uncomfortable. His gang members, fellow inmates, girlfriend (everybody but Ma) are clearly on edge when Jarrett is around. He has a temper that flares up quickly and without warning. He kills without hesitation. Jarrett talks to his Ma after she’s dead (another gang member, sick of her domineering, shoots her in the back while Cody is jail). He doubts his own sanity as he dwells on his father, who died “in the nuthouse.”

By the time he reaches the end of the line, cackling while the flames from a burning chemical tank explode around him, Jarrett has pretty much lost it.

Cagney’s Jarret reminds me of Heath Ledger as the Joker. While the Joker is on a whole other plane of unreality, they are both unrepentant killers, unpredictable and just scary to be around. Cody, when he starts to get angry, shows a weird, lipless sneer reminiscent of the Joker’s own mutilated mouth.

One other thing that sets White Heat apart is its presentation of what may be a reasonably realistic portrayal of what it’s like to live outside the law. I’ve read a couple of novels in the Parker series by Richard Stark. Parker (he doesn’t seem to have a first name) supports his modest lifestyle by committing major heists. When his share of the take starts to dwindle past a certain point, he begins looking for his next payday.  

Just a few pages of the Parker books are about the actual crime. Mostly, they cover the planning and strategizing of the heist, and its aftermath, hiding out, sometimes for weeks, in shabby motels and abandoned houses.

White Heat similarly doesn’t romanticize outlaws. After Jarrett’s gang hijacks a “treasury train,” they hide out in a vacant house, wearing overcoats indoors (Cody won’t allow them to turn up the heat, lest the outside world notices smoke rising from the chimney), before moving on to cheap roadside bungalows. No penthouse apartments. No fur coats.

The other Parker touch in White Heat is the character called “The Trader,” a guy who stays mostly underground and serves as Cody’s financier/“business development” agent. The Trader meets Cody in yet another abandoned house (this time out in the country) to present him with the plans and financing to pull off a payroll robbery at a chemical plant. In the Parker books, there’s usually someone who recruits the gang, then lays out the money for guns, ammo and vehicles in return for a (usually major) cut of the take.

Hollywood gangster movies had pretty much run their course when White Heat came out in 1949. This late, last gasp left the genre on top of the world.