The Brilliance of White Heat

Raoul Walsh's 1949 film "White Heat" is regarded as one of the greatest gangster films of cinema. What truly drives the movie to its classic status, and raises it above the ordinary cops & robbers movie is the central performance by James Cagney as Cody Jarrett. This is no ordinary performance and one needs to take into account the way the subconscious works in the human being, especially in respect to creativity and the process of construction. Jarrett is fundamentally a reconfiguration of Cagney's earlier show-stopper Tom Powers in "Public Enemy", 1931, which detailed the rise and fall of a small-time hood during the Depression. Powers is more of a familiar type of villain, and has redeemable features, with the added pathos of a 'good' Ma, awaiting his arrival back home at the end of the movie. Jarrett departs from the amoral Powers in many ways though, primarily through story and background.

We learn a little throughout the film about his background. There is a strain of insanity that runs in the family. His father ended up kicking and screaming in the mental house. To gain the attention of his Ma, he use to fake headaches and gradually the headaches became real, brought on by moments of doubt and pressure. His wife, played by Virginia Mayo, was once a prostitute whom he appears to have rescued from that kind of lifestyle, but she wants order and the good things of the world, and it is evident there is no true love for her husband just a domicile need to be wanted. When Jarrett ends up in prison she turns her attentions to "Big" Ed, played by Steve Cochran, in a ploy to maintain her level of maintenance and equality with others. One senses her fears of slipping back into the sleazy chaos she sprang from. We even learn about a brother, but he is just mentioned in passing, as if there is a big family secret about him.

The driving impetus of Jarret is his Ma, played by Margaret Wycherly. Most critics see in her portrayal the reasons for Jarrett's psychosis and criminality but closer examination to the script and to the unconscious urgings of the writers reveal a deeper depth and life to this seemingly frail old woman. Her face depicts one who has lived through hard times. It is evident that she has had to make a go of it on her own, bringing up her children the best way she can, by not relying on any others. The hospitalization of her husband is a clue to her stoicism and it is generally viewed as a control device over her son but this is far from the truth. It is true Jarrett loves and idolises his Ma, and rarely queries any of her suggestions. In turn she protects him from his enemies, and when she hears of the plot to be rid of Jarrett she takes action of her own. This is the true indicator of her love for her son. She is a proud woman and sees society at large as the attack on her family, first with the insanity and incarceration of her husband and then with the missing brother. Having only Jarrett left in her old age she treats him with loving care and devotion to the point one may infer that she suffers from a shared insanity, that is tantamount to their very existence.

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Walsh presents the film in a peculiar style. From the opening train robbery, which is reminiscent of the old west, to the high-tech chemical plant we are meant to subconsciously rediscover something of the truth behind the reality of the characters. Jarrett is an everyman type, and though clearly without conscience and having awful sociopath tendencies it is obvious he is not going to fit to type. To his Ma he is the devoted son, the one who is going to make it to the 'top of the world' looking down on his friends and foes alike. She is Agrippina to Cagney's Nero. To his wife he is the breadwinner, the husband and from a scene later on the wife-beater. She can play games with him but not where his mother is concerned. To his gang he is the Boss. The Big-I-Am. They follow like obedient sheep, except for "Big" Ed who dreams of usurping his boss and stealing his wife. This Othello-like structure is deliberate and Shakespeare's influences rages over several of the character relationships in varying ways.

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To the undercover policeman Fallon, played by Edmond O'Brien, Jarrett is the target, to be protected, cajoled, and duped into revealing truths about his criminal activities. First Fallon becomes a replacement for Ma during a spell of headaches whilst in prison. Initially one is led to believe that Jarrett sees Fallon as a younger brother, calling him 'kid' at any given opportunity but the role is more like that of father and son, and this induces in the viewer the realisation that for such a family man there is an absence of family. Jarrett's seedless marriage with ex-prostitute Verna has floundered and created a family of a different kind, one that moves underground. When Jarrett realises the betrayal of Fallon at the end is he really that surprised? It is almost as if it is an answer to his existential wanderings and robberies. Never trust anyone.

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Jarrett represents the kind of career criminal that lives a life on the newspapers, either through lack of conviction, escape or sheer audacity. When he learns, and here there is something Freudian about the message, that his Ma was shot in the back by "Big" Ed he metamorphoses into something else - and there appears an weariness about his rambling old gangster, he becomes his father but without chains. "Big" Ed was ribbed about his 'big' plans and 'big' this-and-that and there is unsubtly an indication here about Jarrett's impotence which can never be given full reign whilst Ma is about. So when he believes, and recall it is actually Verna who gets the old lady in the back, "Big" Ed got her in the back, it is not the death of his Ma that sends him over the precipice of clear reason but the horror of usurpation by a younger and fitter man, so much that when he plugs "Big" Ed in the back he does not wallow in victory but smirks to Verna as if to say, there I can do it to. What punishment he retains for Verna is left to our imaginations but she becomes docile and affectionate.

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Finally in reliving the 'wooden horse of Troy' story to his gang we go full circle as the father now passes on his wisdom to his 'family'. Walsh has delivered us of the mythos of misunderstanding and we head to the highly advanced chemical factory for the final scene. Here the intricate pipes and tubes, stairwells and huge gas vats seem to represent the convoluted and twisted mind of the master criminal. Reaching the top of a gas tank we are left to ponder the nature of this callous but slightly sentimental individual.

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In the opening five minutes of the movie we see Jarrett cold-bloodily murder two railway employees. His disregard for human life is hammered home to us relentlessly but still we find ourselves gawking at this crazy apparition of a madman, who could easily be related to us. Fallon, the undercover officer who has no home life to speak of is never judgemental but strictly professional, in many ways as cold and detached as his target. When he pumps two sniper bullets into the raving Jarret he murmurs "What's keeping him up?" and we must ask a similar question. We want to see him go out in a ball of flames, a blaze of glory but why?

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As Jarrett descends or ascends into omnipotence he begins to talk in the third person about "Cody Jarrett" how he answers with a gun and so on. It becomes clear that his absolute genius for self-determination has become such a dynamic impetus he transcends the meaning of the film and as he deliberately shoots the valves of the gas pipes, knowing the result, he cries out to his Ma about having accomplished her dream for him. The policeman's glib aside does not resonant but only brings us back to reality whereas Jarret has assailed infamy and notoriety, beating the odds stacked against him, albeit in an insane way. His apocalypse of revelatory experience cannot be realised on this earth but must be construed with the total destruction of all around him. Truly Jarrett is the pearl that causes the oyster pain.

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Cagney's sublime and well-mannered portrayal would not be equalled in parts until Dennis Hopper's gang leader-husband-mother obsessed Frank Boothe rants and raves around a life of meaningless violence. I suspect Lynch gave a nod to the film for in the raid on Frank's place there are scenes of gas canisters and breaking glass, very similar of Walsh's police assault on the Chemical buildings.