White Heat is a gangster chronicle famous for it's over the top, apocalyptic ending. James Cagney's gangster Cody Jarrett screaming "Top of the world!" has been referenced, homaged and parodied over many decades.
What I didn't know was the story of how Jarrett gets to that fiery self-destructive moment.
The film opens with a daring train robbery in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Cody Jarrett leads a team in the swift, brutally efficient and ultimately deadly theft of money from the train. With 4 men dead and one of Jarrett's gang horribly injured, the gang absconds with the cash to go into hiding.
Which is where things get tense. Cody Jarrett's a coiled up ball of rage, snapping at his gang and his wife Verna in the ice cold mountain cabin where they are waiting out the long arm of the law. Only Jarrett's Ma has any calming influence over him. Ma is as crooked and determined as her son.
Ma Jarrett is particularly comforting when Jarrett suffers one of his debilitating migraine headaches. After one such attack, Ma and Cody have a drink and toast, "Top of the world!".
The gang eventually leaves the cabin and splits up to stay ahead of the police. Cody, Verna and Ma hole up in a motel in Los Angeles where it seems the cops have tracked them. As crafty as Cody Jarrett thinks he is, there's still stuff beyond his control.
Jarrett's plan to avoid the FBI on his tail: go to Springfield, Illinois and surrender himself to the cops there, confessing to a crime that was committed there by an associate of Cody's at the same time as the train hold up in Nevada. It's a lesser charge, he spends a couple of years in the hoosegow then he pops out to claim his share of the train robbery money with the FBI now off his tail.
Except the FBI ain't exactly buying it. But they give Cody Jarrett enough rope to let him think he's getting away with this plan. The FBI knows Cody Jarrett's big jobs are at the behest of an unknown crime boss and the FBI would very much like to meet this person.
The FBI sets up an operative named Hank Fallon to go undercover as con "Vic Pardo" to share a cell with Cody Jarrett, to get into his good graces and maybe get a lead on his silent partner in crime.
"Vic" is able to gain Cody's trust. The volatile gangster is genuinely moved by "Vic's" help and friendship. And Cody needs all the support he can get. It seems that a member of his gang, Big Ed, has taken over the gang, making time with his wife and trying to have Cody killed in prison.
A methodical plan to bust out of jail gets derailed when Cody Jarrett has a complete and total psychotic breakdown when he learns his mother is dead.
One slightly messier jail break later with dead bodies in his wake, Cody Jarrett with "Vic" in tow catches up to Big Ed and kills him. Verna throws Ed under the bus for everything and hooks back up with her husband.
Cody Jarrett meets up with his silent partner and sets up his gang's next big score, a payroll robbery from a chemical plant that will net just under half a million dollars.
Under Jarrett's watchful eye, "Vic"/Hank Fallon is limited in getting word out to the FBI what Jarrett is up to.
But he does get a message to the FBI and no sooner than Jarrett and his gang have entered the chemical plant, the whole place is swarming with cops.
But "Vic" is exposed as a cop and this really pushes Cody Jarrett over the edge. In a total psychotic break, Jarrett is determined to fight his way out or die trying.
Which brings us to the end, with Cody Jarrett screaming "Top of the world!" before he is engulfed in a fiery explosion.
The ending should not be a complete surprise. From the moment we first meet this homicidal psychopath, it is clear that Cody Jarrett would not survive this story. Even the manner of his death is in keeping with his volatile nature. Nobody who lived as hard and intensely as Cody Jarrett was going to be killed by a single bullet. It is fitting that his end comes in a ball of fire, as bright as the sun.
What was a surprise to me as I watched White Heat was how much I came to care about this delinquent dynamo. Yes, Cody Jarrett is a cold blooded killer, a vicious rage machine. But it is also clear that he has mental health problems exacerbated by his crippling migraines and the enabling support of his mother.
Cody's growing friendship with "Vic" exposes the fractures in his psyche. Cody opens up to "Vic" in a way that he does with no one else other than his mother. The revelation that "Vic" is FBI agent Hank Fallon is the worst kind of betrayal for Cody. The robbery has been foiled, escape is impossible and survival even isn't likely but above all that, the worst thing happening to Cody in that moment is the man he trusted more than any other is not who he appears to be.
James Cagney's portrayal of Cody Jarrett is amazingly nuanced. It would be easy to lean into Jarrett's ruthlessness as a grimacing goon with an itchy trigger finger. But Cagney imbues Jarrett with a certain charisma, moments where he is sensible and even likable. And when he interacts with his mother, he is sympathetic, a person clearly in both physical and emotional pain.
Early in his career, James Cagney was well known for tough guy roles, playing gangsters and the like. He wanted to move away from such parts to avoid being typecast which he appeared to do after winning an Oscar for Yankee Doodle Dandy. But a series of flops at the box office made Cagney ready for a return to basics and returned to Warner Bros. to make White Heat.
A return to Warner Bros. was not welcomed by James Cagney. He considered his time under contract there working for studio head Jack Warner as pure hell. Warner himself was not happy to have Cagney back on the movie lot, referring to him as "that little bastard".
Still, as far as White Heat was concerned, James Cagney's return to Warner Bros. and to gangster films was a success both at the box office and with critics. To this day, White Heat is considered among the best motion pictures of all time.
In the pantheon of film noir, White Heat remains top of the world.
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