James Cagney - White Heat

[EGarrett01]

At :35, isn't that Jim Thorpe?

[lemmedasker]

Man alive, he floors those guards like it aint no thing!

[LieutenantEO]

Muahaha!! Love him! And you say most of this was improv?

[Factnotfictionpeople]

My old man couldn't stand Cagney! LOL

[xXStrWbrrYsToneXx]

Spoiler alert?

[Edam3000]

....and then everybody went back to eating...

[MidwestThinker]

The special effects in this scene are great.

[bansheewhiskey]

good ole jimmy

[NjaZnino]

james cagney one of the greatest, cheers

[athenasword1]

Move over Rambo. the way he knocks out those guards great !!

[Soultrader2000]

Oh sorry I was just kiddin she's fine.

[CAGNEY00]

my name is cagney

[MrOzcap14]

@999grime You don't understand the whole thing. Cagney decided to add it in to show more character detail. His character is supposed to be crazy and Cagney shows it. You need to think about the whole picture nad not think of one scene. Its more than just crawling across a table.

[JubalCalif]

Heavens to Cody Jarrett! One of cinema's most powerful scenes ever! And proof of what a gifted actor the late great James Cagney was! THANKS for posting! :-)

[llosllos78]

always wondered what movie TUPAC was watching in "JUICE" guess this was it

[doron297]

what year was this movie?

[JubalCalif]

@doron297

This movie (Warner Bros' "White Heat") was released in 1949.

[Somethingyoumayknow]

Does anybody know where I can find the scene where Cody gives the guy in the trunk "a little air". That scene cracks me up!

[prityricky1]

Cagney would not be knocking security guards out with one punch with his little self! Lol...Great actor though!

[M14autoassault]

@prityricky1 Cagney was always known for 1 punch knockouts. He was a tough guy remember and knew how to use his hands well. If a punch is thrown with enough force, aimed correctly, and hits the right spot then a knockout is quite possible. Cagney was a master at throwing that kind of punch. He also was a good street fighter in real life and became an amateur boxer who at one point was a runner-up for the New York State lightweight title.

[prityricky1]

@M14autoassault I wasn't aware that he was a good street fighter nor an accomplished boxer. However, there still is a lot of "Hollywood" in this scene. He is knocking out people twice his size with one punch consecutively. I don't care what spot Manny Pacuiao punches a a heavyweight fighter in the face. He isnt knocking out a heavyweight with one punch. Lol. Your point is well taking though. He obviously could fight.

[ozoneocean]

@prityricky1 Knockouts are caused by the brain moving inside the skull and getting a shock. Very tricky to do deliberately, but it isn't dependant upon the size and weight of the hitter, just how much of a sudden jolt they can give your head.

In reality though, by the second hit his hand would probably be to badly injured to continue.

[shanghaibenny2]

Yes, "a boy's best friend is his mother."

[JRCrowley]

When prisons were run like high schools.

[MrRoyHutchins]

What is so amazing about this scene was that no one in that place was told what Cagney was going to do.He told the director just to have someone there to catch him at the end of the table.Did the scene in one take.Brilliant.

[palehorse864]

"Ask him how my mother is" *whisper* *whisper* *whisper* *whisper *whisper* *mumble* *whisper* *whisper* *whisper* "In the shop with a broken carburetor."

[reallyf62]

Amazing work...Cagney was ahead of his time...

[mrhonkeytonker]

Sure looks like The Great Jim Thorpe at 0:35

[MrRoyHutchins]

Dont shoot,its me..Reilly!

[MrRoyHutchins]

"I told you to keep away from that radio.If that batteries dead,it'll have company".

[patyoyo]

do you know where the doctor is?

[blackwarriorize]

1:19 is the best punch

[Eric68B]

after bogart the best actor

[Rachelvis1]

The best actor ever ...and I mean ever..there will never be another James Cagney, even his name has that feeling of greatness, and he was a great, great actor Rachelvis-------TCB...I LOVE JAMES CAGNEY.....from the "The Elvis Presley Appreciaton Wave"..We love you Elvis, but We all Salute you..Mr. James Cagney....

[foomfb]

CLASSIC!!!!!!!1



[Deppaddicted]

Cagney is king.

[herrveidt]

you kid don't know Cagney...a right hook...a left hook...Cagney is the best...son you would have to stand on your mothers shoulders to kiss Mr. Cagney's butt....

[LoneTinaja]

Cagney's greatest film

[jamie197400000000000]

Brilliant acting! Top class.....

[PhillipCreeper]

The prisoner third to Cagney's right at the 27 sec mark is the great athlete Jim Thrope.

[Rocky15151515]

I read that Cagney improvised this and everyones reactions are genuine.

[stitchmorg]

and he was only 5'3

[McNugget06]

5 K.O.'s in a row.

[Ramtough93]

best. actor. ever.

[daisyroots]

I was only kidding....shes not dead.....I saw her last week....she said to say HI.....It was a joke....GOSH!

[yowzephyr]

@daisyroots Why you dirty rat!

[stillmakinitinlife93]

Amazing acting. although i have to admit this was pretty funny lol

[stoenyce]

YANES CAGNEY

[skkkeet]

Cagney is the best!

[Halo56691]

The movies at their best

[Entropy56]

At least thugs were more clean-cut back then

[ohiostmarine29203]

0:28 greatest athlete every...Jim Thorpe

[cahr412]

james cagney is the original gangster

[FatsDomino64]

By the fourth time you'd think those security guys would wise up to the fact that he's going to give them a right hook to the face.

[Neobarone]

@FatsDomino64 It's not a right hook but a straight right. Note that one guard hit him with a club but he still kept going. They did "wise up" to this punch, did they not, with the goon squad?

[Iwtchutube]

What an actor! Brilliant performance!

[Hammersmashed68]

My grandfather was a great friend of Cagney's...there's a famous story with this scene...NOBODY on the set knew how Cagney was going to act in this scene...this was spontaneous, and the atmosphere he created will forever be cemented in this scene...amazing acting and as you can see the actor's were stunned!

[fisherkingbat]

heartbreaking / heart rending performance. Cagney was something else and a real class act from what I've ascertained...

[BiglipsMama]

top of the world james cagney

[TheLukeMonster]

Would anyone care to explain why Cagney's shouting "Mommy!" at 1:32 and 1:45 isn't nearly as well-known as Brando's screaming, "Hey, Stella!"?

[themegatron14]

james cagney knows how to act great. I love his movies.

[14Srb88]

Incredible..

[fleetsider]

Only one "James Cagney"!

[Rothschild1976]

holy shit

r

[Komofti6161]

best actor hwo plays a outlow heheh i like it

[realfunny7]

that look on edmond o'brien's face is classic - he did not know that was coming

[TheKaos007]

Please kids once he appeals it will be dismissed.......

[CalumK1982]

How could he possible act like that?!!!!!!!!  That was amazing!

[sonofabitchstew]

...doesn´t Cagney REALLY look like Kenneth Branagh...?...

[tracytcb111111111111]

what a great movie ive seen it more than once they dont make them like that any more were stuck with some of the crap now a days james cagney is an awsome actor

[citizenhal]

@tracytcb111111111111 Saying "they don't make them like that anymore" is a bit of an uneducated statement, no offense. Film is an artform, it changes. There has always been crap stuff, and there has always been amazing stuff like this. Every period of film has been a time for adventure and exploration, to delve into social events and attitudes etc. Art doesn't really get 'worse', society changes around it.

(My grammer is a fail)

[bearcub410]

this is one of the most frightening scenes in movie history . sounds like the bowels of hell . wonderful

[johnnycheck99]

greatest actor of his generation.

[Halo55691]

Cagney is the one of the best actors for any type of film

[MrLUCIFER616]

Fuck James......it was a joke.....she is alive and well

[syko567890]

This scene reminds me of when Sean Penn was being bombarded by the police when he found out his daughter died in "Mystic River."

The way they sound when they cry is very similar too.

[Halo55691]

James Cagney is the greatest

[DreDaDon16]

Cagney is the greatest actor of all time him pacino henry fonda and cary grant and denzel too

[ziggy72170]

I think his emotional outburst is Justified !! (hearing from a stranger your MOM died). I'd figured the inmates in today's Prisons, probably act the same way,(when a close loved-one dies). I'm hoping that there would be some kind of protocol , of informing an Inmate of a passing Relative.(A counselor-of-sort).

[MrLUCIFER616]

@ziggy72170 I think the prison-guard says "Everyone who's Mother is still alive..... take one step forward........not you.....stupid"

[ontherightedge]

Woulda done the same thing...

[littlegebees]

BEST CAGNEY SCENE EVER

[doctornoooo]

Walsh did not even know what Cagney meant in this scene: all he told him was

get somebody down at the end of the table to catch me.  Then the shooting began, and guess what, he did it in one take. No, even Brando at his best could not

have achieved this kind of believability. Nobody could. His portrait in this film is the most frightening ever done...maybe with the exception of Jimmy Stewart at the end of Vertigo or Stewart working over Dan Duryea in Winchester 73.

[joeparkson]

According to a Cagney bio, Cagney's real life father was an alcoholic epileptic who had fits like this.

[ADRIANDAVID]

That is one emotional scene... whew...

[TainoMantis]

A portrayal of a sociopath (not a psychopath) with an Oedipal Complex. Frightening! James Cagney, Marlon Brando, and Humphrey Bogart...I'd be hard pressed to ever see actors like them again....

[augustusdes]

Orson Welles and Stanley Kubrick, perhaps the two greatest American directors of all time categorically stated that they believed Cagney was the finest actor the world had ever seen. What more needs to be said?

[blinko656]

No black people/...

[hotdog2020]

WOW! This is........... Hollywood needs to find these type of movies and actors again. How they go back to eating and talking like nothing at the end is awesome.

[rusheena]

Man, Me and my friend couldn't stop laughing at this scene; I know Cagney is famous for knocking out ppl, but DAANNNGGG! LOL

[citizenhal]

@rusheena Laughing for the wrong reasons.

[rusheena]

@citizenhal Hey, I can't help it; it always cracks me up when Cagney gives someone a right hook.

[matthewcgreen]

This was a terrifyingly disturbing scene.....and it is that which makes it so brilliant. The world needs more actors like James Cagney, instead of those publicity-seeking "actors" of today. Jimmy Cagney is timeless - he will never be forgotten.

[wesker256]

IMDb says this was improvised by Cagney.

[funcooldrew2]

what does that mean?

[imaRoLLingStonzFan]

@funcooldrew2

it means he just acted "that part" the way he wanted and it wasn`t in the script

(and it was brilliant )

[blinko656]

@imaRoLLingStonzFan dIt wasn't brilliant, it was very good. Einstein was brilliant.

[imaRoLLingStonzFan]

@blinko656 well it was a good idea 

[FellowTraveller]

brilliant

[breezwonder]

Bishop: "Poo Yaa!! Pow Poo Yaah!!

[originalman81]

priceless

[DamnStraightM35A2]

the guy at :28 is Jim Thorpe the athlete!

[ShyJackStudios]

Per Cagney himself, he told the director to put the two beefiest guys that they could find on either side of him, to help him get on the table, and to keep the cameras rolling no matter what happened.

[geofree1984]

Best thing I've ever seen!

[WizardOfHumor1989]

Poor Cagney is acting like a very young child having a tearful fit!

[geofree1984]

Well his mother did just die...

[WizardOfHumor1989]

I know his mother just died! But, a convicted sex-offender / killer / rapist having a tearful childish temper tantrum in prison would make great raw footage on those wild PRISON RIOT caught on tape shows on TruTv: Not reality actuality.

[geofree1984]

I've never seen a child have a tantrum like that, that was an adult-sized freakout.

And it's great to know that you have a complete understanding of every mind that is and has ever been incarcerated from watching "TruTV".

[WizardOfHumor1989]

Well, it would be how a mentally ill person with emotional dysfunctions would act! Cagney was a ruthless con-man who found it hard to cope with the loss of his mother! He was acting like a child who refused to leave a playground!

[ZocturnalToast]

@WizardOfHumor1989 you have to understand that this man is unstable. It makes him seem that little more psychotic, the fact that he has child like tantrums but then shows no remorse when it comes to killing people etc. I think the writers did this to show a correlation between his childhood and his outlaw attitude, perhaps to highlight the fact that he had an abnormal upbringing which compelled him to cause pain to people.

[WizardOfHumor1989]

I know he's unstable! He's a man with a criminal record! Nobody expected his emotional reaction hearing the news of an important loved one's death (such as his mother) to be this bizarre! He was so overcome with emotion and rage, he didn't know what to do! He just needed to get out there and say goodbye to his dead mother and just kill the SOB who killed her so bad! Revenge is like a poison! IT can turn us into something ugly! I guess it did him really good!

[hjb103055]

@WizardOfHumor1989 Type this in. It should explain why this happened.

White Heat- Cody Jarrett's Best Moments

[william3231954]

Wheather it's staged ,, improvisation or what,, it's a master actor at his best,,his transformation from a calm/ scheming man into a wild beast should be studied by acting classes

[dproblem3]

on juice it was betta cuz tupac made it good

[oysterjoe]

America's greatest actor.

Only Brando could compare

[wwerulestna]

@oysterjoe and De Niro!

[whizzhead]

@oysterjoe n es irish

[Fable215]

"Ask him how my mother is?" So Gangsta

[Dravenswraith]

i am reading cagney by cagney he doesnt mention the ans to this but he does say that he didnt "psych himself up" he just did it, he said hed had an experience around inmates at a mental ward that brought the idea to him from when he was young

[yankee15]

It doesn't sound to me like he's saying let's go. If you think it's not improvised, just look at the reaction of Edmund O'Brien when he slams the cup down.

[DriveByTroll]

When they cut to Edmund O'Brian it is a separate take. In fact there are several takes cut together so Cagney's reaction could only have been unexpected for one of the shots.

[hiyadroogs]

This scene may not be as improvised as you have been told. I noticed many years ago while watching this scene, that Jimmy lets slip 'Let's go!' at 1:03. He would not have uttered that had the moves not been planned beforehand. Great clip though. Astonishingly, before special effects, Jimmy actually said that the bullets shot at him in the building in Public Enemy were real ones!!

[ronaldt491]

If you replay this video you'll hear him say "Let go!" as in Let me go. The other convicts would have been trying to pull him back and calm him down so as to not attract a lot of attention from the guards.

[geofree1984]

Maybe they grabbed onto him to help him up on top of the table, hence why the camera switches away for that brief second, or maybe it was all part of his insane ramblings. Who cares really?

[hiyadroogs]

Thanks for your message. I agree. If you enjoy the film, what does it really matter? Each person will enterpret the scene in their own way, so there's little point in any of us speculating on an actors thoughts 70 years after the event. : )

[Dravenswraith]

it may be that only some of the ppl were aware of what was going to happen so that there would be more real reactions ..not trying to add to the argument but it could have been true

[hiyadroogs]

That's certainly a possible explanation. I don't know the truth about this scene any more than anyone else at this distance in time. But I would think that the director would have had to have detailed knowledge of Jimmy's planned moves in order to keep the camera's trained on him for the best shots, which is why I doubt an impromptu performance.

[allenpoe17]

@hiyadroogs then that was a god awful director hell anyone would have seen how good this freak out moment he did and purposely kept the camera moving

[hiyadroogs]

@allenpoe, whatever the truth of this scene, isn't it great that we are still debating it some 70 years later? That's what films should be about. : )

[whatitis117]

Tyson JR.

[spottydog4472]

Still makes my hair stand up at this scene.....

[007QuantumofSolace]

one of my top favorite actors!

[joeparkson]

I know it should never be remade, but if it were, who'd you cast as Jarrett? Al Pacino? Joe Pesci? DeNiro?

[007QuantumofSolace]

fanominal acting! james cagney is one of the best!

[Conqueror441]

James Cagney is such an amazing actor!

[DroolingImbecile]

I love the end with the electric chair. Cagney shits his pant!

[Dravenswraith]

he doesnt die that way in this one..he gets blown up on a tower

[hiyadroogs]

No. He pretends to in order to dissuade the young gang who look up to him from embarking on a life of crime. He does it because his childhood friend who is now a priest, asks him to act like a coward to stop others from following his path. He pretends to refuse his friend at first because he doesn't want to lose face, but finally comes around in his final moments & does the right thing. In doing this, he destroys his reputation as a tough guy, yet proves his true courage to those who know him.

[hiyadroogs]

That comment was for DroolingImbecile in reference to Angels With Dirty Faces.

[Ramtough93]

very sad scene, I cant help but smile though when I see him punch the guards, cagney = best actor eva

[UncleMikeNJ]

Third man down from Cagney: Jim Thorpe, the 1912 Olympian and football legend.

[circa1960]

thorpe was with the new york giants for a while but he didn't do much with the bat. yeah, cagney's something else. If you ever tried acting, it's not at all easy.

[yankee15]

The look on Edmond O'Brien's face was priceless!

[bonpourvous]

Superb acting from Cagney, this scene sticks in my memory, the sheer raw emotion displayed is incredible.

Thanks.

[GEVMM]

James Cagney is one of the greatest actors ever to appear on screen.

[foxy123ok]

James cagney is probably one of the best actors I have ever seen playing a phycopath!

[blinko656]

@foxy123ok My wife is better..

[syko567890]

@foxy123ok  The best actor period!

[solano77]

@foxy123ok the best actor of all time playing the role of a gangster !

[BiglipsMama]

@solano77 thats right best ever top of the world

[secretbint]

lunatic.