White Heat (1949)
Warner Bros. had made film history in the 1930s with its run of gritty, violent gangster films with stars like James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson. Most of them depicted the criminals as products of their environment. By 1949, however, times were changing. They lured Cagney back to the genre by following his suggestions to take a more psychological approach to his character. As a result, Cody Jarrett was a trail-blazing performance for Cagney, one of the best in screen history. Jarrett is a psychopath who trusts nobody except his criminal mother (Margaret Wycherly), and certainly not his faithless wife (Virginia Mayo). Raoul Walsh, who had directed Cagney in The Roaring Twenties (1939) keeps the action moving at a breakneck pace.
d. Raoul Walsh, 114m, 35mm