White Heat

And then we get to the returning film noir stars.

Edmund O'Brien was already one of film noir's most recognizable leading men with The Killers 1946, White Heat 1949, DOA 1950, and 7-Eleven Ocean Drive 1950 behind him.

He would soon add The Hitchhiker, 1953, and Shield for Murder, 1954.

I was particularly happy to see Audrey Totter in this film.

But we went into our second screening yesterday to introduce the movie, and I saw Jimmy Cagney.

And I remember White Heat and him, you know, at the top of that scaffold, top of the world, Ma, you're in for a penny, you're in for a pound.

He's laughing and doing the machine gun.

I love the villain, of course, but it wasn't the impetus for me to play this.

And he wasn't afraid to play really down and dirty characters.

White Heat, where he plays a gangster in that, who's just psychotic.

Absolutely

psychotic.

And I...

Antiheroes started with James Cagney and Whiteheat in 49, but...

Over the years, audiences have reacted in a good way to antiheroes, but this particular antihero was a little bit harder to stomach than most, in my opinion.

But tell us a little bit about how you developed that character and his arc.

And it's just not available on cable.

And so every time I look for it I'm like, "That's the one Cagney movie I haven't seen in a long time that I really..." And it was, White Heat was also one that even though was, he was older Cagney, he's an absolute psychopath.

And, and yet it's one of the strongest roles of, of Cagney where you almost don't recognize him, where he's so evil and he's so, you know, he's such a, a, a deplorable character.

And there's that-

motherOh, yeah.

No, it's, uh, no, it's a br- well, you know, he, he was mad at Warner Brothers for making him do all these shit movies.

So really, during the war years, he made independent movies, and then finally came back for White Heat.

White Heat.

He's famous for Yankee Doodle Dandy in 1942.

Also The Public Enemy, Angels with Dirty Faces, and White Heat.

nerd alert orson wells called him quote maybe the greatest actor to ever appear in front of a camera he spent several years in vaudeville as a dancer and comedian And I thought this was interesting.

Wikipedia has his political party affiliation as a Democrat from 1934 to 1948, and then a Republican from 1948 until his death in 1986, which seems along the lines of when the parties kind of flipped ideologies.

But it's the one which I really...

I actually do feel it's a bit of a... an orphan film a little bit because i just feel like no one's kind of taking care of it from a crime perspective because it's hardly known so i'm really i think that's the one i've got right now that's what i'm going to say is that is one of my favorite noirs everyone just think what the hell are you talking about harris maltese falcon i find brilliant key lago i love immensely no there's loads there's white heat with james cagney I love because of the music and also because it's Cagney.

I've recently read, and it's technically not on the wall, but it is a crime film, obviously.

But I've recently read the 1930s version of Scarface, which is nothing like the film, the original film, or even obviously the 90s, the 80s version with Pacino in.