Ultimately it’s all about Cagney and Walsh.

I must admit, DOA didn’t quite fully captivate me when I first watched it many, many years ago (I think I was eleven or so when I first saw it). Yet when I viewed it this past winter at the Castro with a crowd of raucous noir lovers, I found myself more or less loving it, even if the plot seems to wane in making sense the more closely you look and think about it. Eddie Muller told the crowd afterwards, “I wallow in crime dramas and complex noirs and I write crime novels… And I can’t tell you what the hell is going on in that movie. It’s a film that favors momentum over coherence.” That said, it’s an interesting film; Rudolph Mate was an excellent cinematographer who turned out to be a strong director as well.

Yep, Luke it’s all here in WHITE HEAT and then some. I grew up with this film and have seen it countless times through the year’s as Cagney’s spectacular performance is a lure alone. Beautiful work here Evan–another stellar review in this fascinating Movie Zeal exclusive during the “summer heat.”
The top of the world scene at the end and the scene where Cagney goes berzerk in prison upon hearing of his mother’s murder are classics, not to mention near the beginning where the man in the trunk asks for some aire and Cody empties his revolver to give him some. (but you gave a better description of that scene in your review)
This is one of those films that’s fun to watch over and over–it’s deliriously entertaining.

It sounds like this one is pretty noir thematically. Oedipal complexes? Repressed homoeroticism? Freudian psychoanalysis is one of the first things that comes to mind when I think “noir.”

You make some good points, G, about Jarrett transferring his libido to Edmund’s character. I hadn’t thought about that, but it makes perfect sense. There is an undercurrent of homoeroticism between the two, isn’t there?

I don’t think that Verna is a femme fatale at all, because you’re right that he doesn’t have much of a sexual connection with her. The femme fatale here is Edmund O’Brien (soon to get his due in DOA) as the new object of Cody’s desire. Just as a noir hero gets in trouble when he falls in love with a femme fatale, Cody gets in trouble when he transfers his libido from Ma to Edmund.

“He’s my partner, 50-50.”
“Cody, I never knew you to go 50-50 with anyone.”
“I went 50-50 with Ma, didn’t I?”

That tells you everything you need to know.

But yeah, definitely a Cagney film. Some day I would love to watch this and Yankee Doodle Dandy back-to-back.