White Heat is a 1949 American film noir starring James Cagney, Virginia Mayo and Edmond O'Brien, and directed by Raoul Walsh.

Written by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, White Heat is based on a story by Virginia Kellogg, and is considered to be one of the best gangster movies of all time.

[4][5][6][7] In 2003, it was added to the National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress.

Informants enable the authorities to close in on a motor court in Los Angeles where Cody, Verna, and Ma are holed up.

Hank says he will repair Verna's radio, then rigs a signal transmitter and attaches it to the tanker; on the way to the plant, he manages to get a message to Evans.

The gang gets into the payroll office, but the tanker driver, ex-con "Bo" Creel, recognizes Hank and informs Cody.

Having tracked the truck to Long Beach, California, using direction finders, the police surround the building and call on Cody to surrender; he decides to fight it out.

After making four unsuccessful movies (including the well-regarded, but "financially disastrous" adaptation of William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life),[12] Cagney returned to Warner in mid-1949.

[11] His decision to return was purely financial; Cagney admitted he "needed the money",[12] and that he never forgot the "hell" Warner put him through in the 1930s when it came to renewing his contract.

[12] To make good on his comeback, Cagney settled on the script for White Heat;[12] on May 6, 1949, he signed on to portray Arthur "Cody" Jarrett.

[1] Much to Jack Warner's dismay, it was writers Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts who suggested him for the lead, claiming "there's only one man who can play [Jarrett] and make the rafters rock.

"[14] For years, Cagney resisted gangster roles in an effort to avoid typecasting, but decided to return to the genre after feeling his box office power waning.

[12] Following Cagney's attachment, Warner increased the production budget to $1 million[1] and hired Raoul Walsh to direct.

"[15] White Heat was meant to be based on the true story of Ma Barker, a bank robber who raised her four sons as criminals.

Most notably, in The Public Enemy, Cagney smashed a grapefruit into Mae Clarke's face; in White Heat he kicks Virginia Mayo off a chair.

Furthermore, in The Roaring Twenties Cagney fought with rival gangsters in a similar fashion to how Cody Jarrett stalks the double-crossing "Big Ed" Somers (portrayed by Steve Cochran).

Walsh made use of a number of locations in southern California; first by going to the Santa Susana Mountains (near his home) to shoot "chase scenes".

For this reason, Warner wanted the scene shot in a chapel, but relented when "the writers pointed out that, apart from the fact that Jarrett would [never be willingly caught in a] chapel", the whole point of the scene was to "have a lot of noise, with rattling knives and forks and chatter, that suddenly goes completely silent when Jarrett first screams."

Another scene involved Cody giving his wife, Verna, a "seething look", but Walsh improvised and had Cagney knock her off of her chair.

The site's consensus reads: "Raoul Walsh's crime drama goes further into the psychology of a gangster than most fear to tread and James Cagney's portrayal of the tragic anti-hero is constantly volatile".

[25] In 2003, the United States Library of Congress selected White Heat for preservation in the National Film Registry.

[26] On June 4, 2003, the American Film Institute named Cody Jarrett in its list of the best heroes and villains of the past 100 years, he was voted 26th.

In the noir parody Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, Steve Martin acts in scenes with Cagney's character through special effects and cross-cutting.

Top of the world" line is used in the 1991 film Ricochet, in which Denzel Washington recites the quote in the final scene atop a tower.

"—appears in the 1986 movie Tough Guys during a scene in which Eli Wallach shoots at cops from a train; the same variation is used in the 1990 film The Adventures of Ford Fairlane by Andrew Dice Clay when he escapes kidnappers and discovers that he is atop the Capitol Records Building.