Great Forgotten Scene


Fallon starts a fight while waiting to get an injection to avoid being recognized by another inmate.

Fallon fails to recognize a prominently displayed picture in his cell as that of his 'wife', but quickly covers up by saying something about the haircolor being different.

Cody, with a sinister smile says "Your little trick didn't work", and pauses;

Another cellmate says "Yeah, doc says you still gotta take your shots"; then everyone laughs.

Both Edmond Obrien and Cagney milk the scene for all its suspense and tension.

It's the only time in the movie I was rooting for Fallon not to get unmasked by Cody.

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yup good scene (pretty bad preparation though from the coppas)

one "forgotten" scene i like to point out (it's not really a scene, more like a moment) is when Verna, Cody and Pardo are chatting one evening, Verna talks about spending the money (she definetely LOVES money, gold digger ;) ) and starts jumping up and down the couch before riding Cody like a horse (like a little girl and her father)

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Another thing that struck me as very clever from a cinematic point of view is that the movie starts as a western: the first robbery is the classical attack to a train in a wild place; the train has a steam engine, and the bandits might as well come with horses and Colt Navies in their hands... but the last robbery takes place in a huge chemical plant, as if history had changed the US in the meantime, from the myth of the Wild West we moved to the bleak industrial reality of the post-WWII world. It works very well, and suggests much about the character of Cody--he might have been a hero of the frontier in the 1870s, but in the modern world he's only a psychopath.

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One of my favorite scenes in White Heat is toward the beginning of this movie when the Feds put a tail on Ma Jarrett (Cagney's mother) by tying a rag to her car's rear bumper. She looks into her rear view mirror and suspects she's being followed. It tickled me when the Feds tried to keep up with her.
Classic

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Funny to watch Cagney finish the chicken bone after he shoots the guy in the trunk and he's touching the car door and steering wheel daintily like he doesn't want to get chicken grease on them.

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Hi peterduray-bito,

The chicken eating scene shows Cody Jarret's (Jimmy Cagney's) insensitivity towards human life. Good portrayal of a psycho.

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One of my favorite lines in the movie is when Cagney says "If that battery is dead it's going to have company". I love that line. This is my favorite gangster movie of all time. Great plot and tons of action for sure.

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"He's a Copper, and his name is Falon."

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It was celery, not chicken.

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That's an insightful observation, Latinese.

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I like the small scene at the chemical plant where Cody's wife, Verna Jarrett (Virginia Mayo), shows up and put's on a goody-two-shoes act, trying to convince the detectives to go easy on her if she convinces Cody Jarrett (James Cagney) to give up. I forget the name of the man she's talking to but he is the detective who has been tracking Cody. He "read" her act easily and just says, "Take her away." As they're dragging her off, Verna says something like, "Coppers! They're all the same."
(I understand that back in the day, Policemen's badges were made of copper, hence the terms "Coppers" and it's derivative - still in use today - "Cops.")

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Just watched this last night on Turner. So glad I did. I loved that scene as well.
"Cheap Coppers! You're all the same!"
What a juicy, meaty part for Ms. Mayo! And the mother . . .wowza!

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I cracked up when Verna spit out her gum on the ground before kissing Cody. What a delightfully cheap dame!

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