White Heat (1949) **1/2

Before Al Pacino and Robert De Niro made playing gangsters their main source of income, James Cagney owned that particular character type.  In films like The Public Enemy (1931),  Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), The Roaring Twenties (1939), White Heat (1951), and Love Me or Leave Me (1955), Cagney wrote the book on playing tough-talking, psychotic hoods.  Of all of these performances, his turn as Cody Jarrett in director Raoul Walsh’s White Heat is probably his most riveting.  Perhaps after being typecast as the quintessential gangster so many times Cagney had perfected the role.  Everything that is good about White Heat is due to his performance, as well as Walsh’s focused storytelling style.

Cody is the leader of a California-based crew who hold up a U.S. mail train carrying over $350,000.  This act sets U.S. Treasury investigators on his tail and eventually leads to him confessing to a lesser crime that lands him in the clink for 1 to 3 years.  It is here that he meets an undercover cop named Pardo/Fallon (Edmond O"’Brien) who ingratiates himself to Cody after saving him from an assassination attempt organized by his second in command, Big Ed (Steve Cochran), and his two-timing wife, Verna (Virginia Mayo).  After escaping from prison with a new crew, Cody sets out to even the score with Big Ed and plans a payroll heist at a chemical plant.  All the while, the man who Cody thinks is his new partner, Pardo/Fallon, is setting a trap for him.

What’s interesting about Cody Jarrett, and Cagney’s performance, is that Cody is a complete psychopath, albeit a charming one.  Insanity runs in his family, as both his father and brother totally cracked up and died in asylums, and Cody is no exception.  He has absolutely no problem killing witnesses, strangers, and even members of his gang when they get in his way.  The only person he would think twice about killing is his mother (Margaret Wycherly).  Ma Jarrett and her son have some sort of strange symbiotic relationship that had it existed in the real world (though the movie may have been inspired by the Barkers) would have given psychiatrists loads to ponder.  It also sets up one of the best scenes in the film, when Cody learns that Ma has been killed.  The sounds that come out of Cagney after learning of her death echo what one would hear when an animal is being slaughtered. Cody goes totally berserk. The raw, ferocious intensity that Cagney displays in this scene looks and sounds completely real. 

Virginia Kellogg’s Oscar-nominated motion picture story, which was turned into a screenplay by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, is tightly-wound together by Walsh’s straight-forward directing style.  Known for his ability to trim the fat off of movies, Walsh uses every scene to keep the plot moving forward to its explosive (literally) ending.  This, of course, is what White Heat is most famous for: its ending. From the famous lines Cody says to Pardo/Fallon after he realizes he’s been duped:

A copper, a copper, how do you like that boys? A copper and his name is Fallon. And we went for it, I went for it. Treated him like a kid brother. And I was gonna split fifty-fifty with a copper!

to Cody’s maniacal laughter after being shot by the police atop a gas storage tank, oodles and oodles of gold nuggets escaped to be used as future popular culture references.  And, what better way to go out than with a bang—literally—and in the words of Cody himself, “Made it, Ma! Top of the world!”

 

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Virginia Mayo’s performance as the sultry, manipulative Mrs. Cody Jarrett.  Certainly anyone who’d marry Cody in the first place must have had a screw loose, but Verna is a strange concoction of amusing crazy.  Her back-talk to Cody is both smart and child-like, but it emerges from the body of a woman who has no problem using her looks to get from Point A to Point B.  Mayo plays well against Cagney.  While her best scenes with him are the ones where she gives as good as she gets, she also has the ability to play a woman truly afraid of her menacing husband.  This, of course, was due to the fact that Mayo was completely frightened by Cagney because she found his performance so realistic.

Overall, White Heat is a tightly constructed crime drama that benefits from the good acting of Cagney and Mayo, as well as from a focused, linear plot.

 

High Sierra (1941) **

For those unfamiliar with Humphrey Bogart’s first twelve years in the world of cinema, where he played countless supporting and ancillary roles, it’s probably surprising to read the above movie poster and see that Ida Lupino was awarded top-billing in High Sierra (1941).  It might be even more perplexing to learn that director Raoul Walsh didn’t want Bogart to have the lead role but wanted George Raft to play Roy Earle. The adapted screenplay, penned by Bogart’s friend John Huston, from the W.R. Burnett novel of the same name, was just the vehicle Bogart was looking for to step out as a legitimate leading man. And, so he first went about persuading Raft to turn down the part and then convincing Walsh to give him a chance.  The rest is Hollywood history, as the film was a success and both Bogart and his buddy, Huston, would go on later that year to make the first of their six films together, the iconic The Maltese Falcon (1941)—coincidentally, in yet another role that Raft passed on. 

Roy Earle (Bogart) is an old timer (although Bogart was just past 40 when the film was made) who finds himself paroled by friends with reach who want him to lead a caper at a resort town along Mt. Whitney in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  A nature lover at heart, Roy just wants to pull one more big-time score and settle down on a farm. The problem is he’s a dying breed—most of the guys he came up with are either dead or in Alcatraz—and he has to work with young punks, or in his words, “Jitterbugs”. And so he winds up saddled with Babe (Alan Curtis) and Red (Arthur Kennedy), two idiots who are constantly fighting over dancehall girl, Marie (Lupino), and a weak-willed dandy of a man as his inside man (Cornel Wilde).  With a crew like this, what could go wrong?

I expect the main reason that High Sierra made it into the 1001 Book is because it was Bogart’s breakthrough role, but the film also created a new character type, the existential gangster. The character of Roy is rather developed for your usual hard-boiled gangster type.  As mentioned above, he’s an admirer of nature, but he also has a soft spot for the disadvantaged, as evidenced by his friendship with an Ohio family who he meets on the road to California.  He not only pays to have their car fixed, but he also pays to have the granddaughter’s, Velma (Joan Leslie), clubfoot fixed.  Granted, he has eyes for Velma, but he’s attracted to her perceived decency more than anything.  This decency, of course, is illusory and he eventually realizes that sometimes cheap things (Lupino) are more reliable and valuable than fresh new things.  Of course, none of this matters in the end, because Roy isn’t bound for a happy ending anyway (not with the Hays Code in effect), which leads to his last stand in the crags of Mount Whitney. 

For me, High Sierra suffers from being too top heavy.  What I mean by this is that other than Lupino and Bogart, the rest of the cast is forgettable, sans one small appearance by Donald McBride as Big Mac. This problem would have been avoided had Huston been the director and not the screenwriter, as he knew how to put a strong supporting cast together, something, in my opinion, that Walsh was never very good at.  It doesn’t help that probably the most important supporting role, Velma, was either incorrectly played by Leslie or misdirected by Walsh.  Velma’s transformation from an innocent “cripple” to a care-free party girl is probably the most unbelievable thing about High Sierra, and that’s including the bit where Pard the dog could navigate the rocky hillside of the mountain to find Roy by only hearing his voice once. 

The other thing that I don’t like about High Sierra is the ending—specifically the last ten minutes of it. The idea that any seasoned gangster would not fill his gas tank up and have enough money in his pocket for another tank before setting out to collect $30,000 is just ridiculous.  Then, you add the fact that he would lead a chase through the mountains, for what seems like forever, round and round we go, and then set up behind rocks for his last showdown only to be lured out by a barking dog is beyond ridiculous.  As such, the film ends on a sour note and leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Me and My Gal (1932) **

If you haven’t ever seen or heard of Me and My Gal (1932) don’t be surprised. Until recently it was rarely shown on TV (now you can catch it occasionally on FMC) and it has not made it to DVD yet. As a result, it is one of those films that has been somewhat lost in the shuffle of the countless films of the Studio Era. It’s a small film, with a small plot.

Made prior to the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, this film openly glorifies the joyful effects of alcohol consumption. There is a running gag about an always-drunk fisherman (Will Stanton) who is forever getting into comical scrapes. In one particular scene he gets in a fight with another drunk over the type of fish he has stolen. Yet, instead of using his fists he uses the fish as his weapon. Another scene finds a uproariously good time at a wedding, where guests drink beer out of a bootleg barrel and throw wirelesses out the window. The final shot of the film finds the father (J. Farrell MacDonald) of the film’s heroine (Joan Bennett) walking straight into the camera lens and asking, “Who’d like a drink, huh?” Pushing the envelope was nothing new for director Raoul Walsh, but it is still remarkable that he got away with some of the stuff he did in this film.

Working from a wisecracking script by Philip Klein, Barry Conners, and Arthur Kober, Walsh created a film that is difficult to define in terms of genre. It could be a comedy, crime drama, or an oddball romance—you pick!

Spencer Tracy stars as harbor cop Danny Dolan. Danny isn’t the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but he has a lot of the luck of the Irish. After rescuing a dog from a man who was going to drowned it because he couldn’t afford to feed it (a nod to the hard times of the Depression), Danny goes to the local chowder house to buy some bones and meets sarcastic cashier Helen Riley (Joan Bennett). They trade mutual barbs and it quickly becomes obvious they like one another. Later, when a drunk fisherman (Stanton) falls into the harbor Danny saves him and gets a promotion to detective for it. This promotion leads him to the sidewalk outside Helen’s house, where a radio has been thrown out the window at a loud wedding reception (where lots of alcohol is consumed with great relish). Upon entering the apartment Danny finds that Helen’s sister Kate (Marion Burns) has just been married and he overlooks the drinking, which endears him to Helen. This is a fortuitous meeting in two ways: 1) Helen will go out with him now; 2) Kate is the ex-girlfriend of wanted mobster Duke Castenega. In the end, Danny will rescue Kate from the clutches of Duke and get yet another promotion and a large reward. With this large reward he will marry Helen and go to the Caribbean for his honeymoon.

The bantering relationship between Danny and Helen is fun to watch. Danny is a hard-boiled cop, who is always thinking of his next witticism. Helen is a strong-minded dame, who gives as good as she gets when it comes to Danny. There is one particular scene that stands out to me because of how cleverly it was done. While lying together on her sofa (her father had conveniently went to visit his other daughter) the subject of some film comes up. In it, the characters do voiceovers to show the audience what they are really thinking. Walsh launches off this remark to do the same with his own characters. And, so as they are saying what they think the other one wants to hear, the audience gets to hear their real thoughts via voiceover. For example, when Danny makes a comment about Helen’s father being a fun, old guy she agrees, but she thinks aloud to the audience that if her father found them on the couch like they were that Danny would have to visit a doctor.

The acting is relaxed and the story is just strong enough to keep your attention. There is no amazing camerawork to speak of—as a matter of fact, there are a few parts that seem a bit jumpy. Yet, while it’s not the greatest film you’ll ever see, it is nonetheless an enjoyable 90 minutes. Plus, you get to see a very young Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett show why they would go on to have very long careers.

The Thief of Bagdad (1924) **1/2

No, this film isn’t about W. or Dick.

Douglas Fairbanks stars in this 1924 silent classic, where people take magic carpet rides without the aid of hallucinogens. Fairbanks plays a handsome, happy-go-lucky thief, who through sheer acrobatic ability lands himself in the caliph’s palace. He falls in love with the soon-to-be-wed princess and goes on a quest for a magic chest that will win him his love and save Bagdad from the evil Mongols.

The special effects are pretty advanced.  Favorites of mine include the winged horse, the magic carpet, and the fire-breathing dragon. If you rent the DVD it has a bonus section about the special effects. Fairbanks’ athleticism (and chest) is on full display from beginning to end. The caliph, played by Brandon Hurst, is a riot.

Overall, for its time, the film is a visual marvel. The story is captivating and has good pacing. A delightful film to watch.