White Heat - videos, teasers and stills from filming

All videos, teasers and footage from the filming of the film "White Heat"

White Heat (1949)

Timing: 1:54 (114 min)

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All about film

Video 2

Photo 27

Actors and characters

Jack Hill on WHITE HEAT

English

2:58

White Heat (1949) Official Trailer - James Cagney Movie

English

2:23

What's left behind the scenes

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.

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