Director: Raoul Walsh
Writer: Ivan Goff (screenplay), Ben Roberts (screenplay), Virginia Kellogg (Story)
Stars: James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O’Brien, Margaret Wycherly
This review is part of the feature:
White Heat is a gangster thriller unlike any other, anchored by James Cagney’s greatest gangster performance as Cody Jarrett, a volatile, psychopathic criminal plagued by seizures and an Oedipal fixation on his mother.
Jarrett leads a ruthless gang alongside his mother – Ma Jarrett – who could easily have been the inspiration for Tony Soprano’s terrible mother Livia in The Sopranos.
The film’s tension ignites early when Jarrett’s gang robs a train, stealing 300,000 dollars in Treasury Bonds and leaving two railroad men dead. With the police closing in, Jarrett orchestrates his own arrest for a lesser crime, shielding himself from prosecution for the heist.
Meanwhile, his gang fractures as gang member Big Ed grows dangerously close to Jarrett’s wife, Verna (Virginia Mayo). Ma Jarrett, ever the strategist, warns her son of the betrayal brewing. Unbeknownst to Jarrett, the police have planted an undercover operative in his prison cell, determined to gather enough evidence to send him to the gas chamber.
Cagney is absolutely magnetic in his role, and he cemented his reputation as one of the great gangster performers right here. The film crackles with relentless energy, its atmosphere thick with suspense, double-crosses, and the ever-present threat of explosion – whether from Jarrett’s next violent outburst, a literal bomb, or his own unraveling psyche.
Mayo shines as the duplicitous yet oddly sympathetic Verna, while Margaret Wycherly delivers an indelible turn as Ma Jarrett, a matriarch whose toxic influence would echo through decades of cinema.
White Heat is more than a classic; it’s a cornerstone of the gangster genre. In 2003, the U.S. Library of Congress enshrined it in the National Film Registry for its cultural, historical, and aesthetic significance and for good reason. Its DNA is woven into the fabric of modern crime epics like GoodFellas and The Sopranos. Without White Heat, would those hallmarks of crime cinema even exist? Unlikely.
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