White Heat (DVD)

Connect to Facebook/Twitter, recommend via email and much more.

---

The director of "White Heat" was noted Hollywood filmmaker Raoul Walsh, whose career in Hollywood spanned over fifty years, from his first movie in 1912 to his last movie in 1964. During those years he directed "The Thief of Bagdad" (1924), "What Price Glory" (1926), "The Roaring Twenties" (1939), "They Died With Their Boots On" (1941), "High Sierra" (1941), "Objective Burma" (1945), "The Tall Men" (1955), "The Naked and the Dead" (1958), and "Captain Horatio Hornblower" (1951), among many others. Whew! "White Heat" was just one more notch in his six-gun.

"White Heat" is crisp, taut, and fast paced from beginning to end. It's true that Walsh makes parts of it seem almost documentary in style when the script delves into police procedural work, but mostly the film is all Cagney, coming apart at the seams. The finale at an oil refinery is as tense and exciting as anything Hollywood has produced. Like the rest of the movie.

Video:
Some of the second-unit location footage is a bit grainy and rough, but most of the film looks very clean. It was obviously a good print, showing little or no signs of age, and it's a good transfer. The black-and-white contrasts in the 1.33:1 ratio picture are also good, if not as vivid as in some older films, and the object delineation is fine. With so little wrong with it, you'd think you'd just stepped into a movie theater of fifty years ago.

Audio:
There is little to be said of the audio. It's a typical monaural of the day, reproduced here via Dolby Digital 1.0, and possibly run through some sort of noise filter to eliminate background hiss. The result is not spectacular in terms of frequency extremes or dynamic range, but it is clear and quiet and generally easy on the ears. Max Steiner's somewhat overwrought musical score is heard to advantage, although it is sometimes a tad lean and bright. The Dolby mono was never meant to be audiophile material, but does a first-rate job with dialogue.

Extras:
Again we get the same sorts of extras that come on all the discs in WB's "Gangsters Collection." First up is film critic Leonard Maltin hosting a "Warner Night at the Movies," 1949. This includes a vintage newsreel of the day; a ten-minute comedy short, "So You think You're Not Guilty," starring Joe McDoakes (actually from 1950 according to the copyright date on it); a seven-minute Merry Melodies cartoon, "Homeless Hare," with Bugs Bunny; and a theatrical trailer for the movie "The Fountainhead."

Following the "Warner Night" is a new documentary featurette, "White Heat: Top of the World," about sixteen minutes long and containing observations on the movie by film professors Dr. Drew Casper, USC, and Dr. Lincoln Hurst, UC Davis; director Martin Scorsese; filmmaker and film historian Alain Silver; authors Mark Vieira and Eric Lax; film critic Andrew Sarris; and actress Virginia Mayo (archival). Combine this documentary with the audio commentary by Dr. Casper, an expert in noir films and gangster movies, and you get a pretty well-rounded account of not only "White Heat" but crime films in general. While none of this bonus material is exactly riveting, it is informative. The extras conclude with thirty-three scene selections; a trailer for "White Heat"; English as the only spoken language; and English, French, and Spanish subtitles.

Parting Thoughts:
"White Heat" is available separately or in a big, six-disc box set, the "Warner Bros. Pictures Gangsters Collection." The other five discs available, listed chronologically, are "Little Caesar" (1930) with Edward G. Robinson and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.; "The Public Enemy (1931) with James Cagney, Jean Harlow, and Joan Blondell; "The Petrified Forest" (1936) with Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, and Humphrey Bogart; "Angels With Dirty Faces" (1938) with Cagney, Bogart, Pat O'Brien, and the "Dead End" Kids; and "The Roaring Twenties" (1939) with Cagney, Bogart, and Priscilla Lane.

"White Heat" is vigorous and uncompromising. Cagney is all kinetic energy and raw nerve. The supporting players are ominous shades lurking in the background. The atmosphere is pure noir from start to finish. And the climax is one of those endings that makes for Hollywood legend.

"Made it, Ma! Top o' the world!"

---

Connect to Facebook/Twitter, recommend via email and much more.

---