White Heat

White Heat (1949)

Timing: 1:54 (114 min)

7.653/10
448

7.635/10
2823

8.1/10
38000

All about film

Video 2

Photo 27

Actors and characters

Release date

1949-09-02

Country

United States

Production

Warner Bros. Pictures

Genre

Crime, Drama, Thriller

Budget

$1 300 000

Revenue

$3 483 000

Website

Director

Raoul Walsh

Actors

James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien, Margaret Wycherly, Steve Cochran, John Archer, Wally Cassell, Fred Clark, Paul Guilfoyle, Ford Rainey
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Louis F. Edelman

Operator

Sidney Hickox

Composer

Max Steiner

Artist

Audition

Editing

Owen Marks
All team (22)

• In 2003, the film was included in the National Film Registry.
• Filming took place in May and June 1949 in a railway tunnel under the Santa Susana Mountains, at the Shell oil refinery in Torrance, and in other areas of California.
• The film's screenplay was inspired by the real-life story of 'Bloody Mother' Barker, who led a whole gang of her sons during the Great Depression.
• The character of Arthur Jarrett, nicknamed Cody, was based on the murderer Francis Crowley (1912-1932), whose adventures ended in a shootout with the police and his arrest on May 7, 1931. Before his execution, he only asked to send his greetings to his mother.
• The idea to make Cody a psychopath belonged to James Cagney (1899-1986). While working on the image, Cagney remembered his father, who would become frantic when drunk, as well as patients of a mental hospital he once visited.
• The surprise of James Cagney’s fellow prisoners in the prison dining hall during the game looks completely genuine, and it was natural that it should be. Director Raoul Walsh (1887-1980) did not tell the other actors what would happen, so Cagney surprised them. In fact, Walsh himself didn’t know what to expect from Cagney. Cagney simply asked to have two of the largest extras playing prisoners seated next to him, and to film everything that followed without stopping the camera.
• At that time, they hadn’t yet begun using firecrackers to simulate bullets hitting obstacles during filming. For this purpose, they used snipers who fired bullets with a low velocity to break windows or show that a bullet had hit very close to a particular character. During the factory scene, Cagney himself was nearly hit several times.