White Heat (1949). 114 minutes. Directed by Raoul Walsh. Starring James Cagney (as Arthur “Cody” Jarrett), Virginia Mayo (as Verna Jarrett), Edmond O’Brien (as Hank Fallon), Margaret Wycherly (as “Ma” Jarrett), Steve Cochran (as “Big Ed” Somers), John Archer (as Philip Evans), Wally Cassell (as Giovanni “Cotton” Valletti), and Fred Clark (as Daniel “The Trader” Winston). Screenplay by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts. Based on a story by Virginia Kellogg.

When James Cagney starred in the pre-Code gangster film The Public Enemy in 1931, little did he know that his on-screen thug persona would quickly become so iconic that he would still be starring in crime movies eighteen years later. Cagney largely considered himself a song-and-dance man, and it was challenging for him to escape from the shadow of The Public Enemy. Aren’t we lucky, however, that Cagney was repeatedly persuaded to act in the crime genre, because he gave us not only Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) in … Read the rest