Question for Jimmy Cagney fans

Cafe Society
1

Was Jimmy Cagney known for playing a gangster with a death wish, like at the end of White Heat when he goes up in a blaze of glory?

I ask because last night’s episode of Foyle’s War a psycho hood was (an informer said) infatuated with Jimmy Cagney. When cornered by Foyle, he took great relish in the thought of blowing himself (and everyone else) up with a vial of nitroglycerine. (Fortunately, the vial contained something else.)

White Heat came out in 1949, but the episode of Foyle’s War was dated December, 1942. I smell an anachronism.

2

That would definitely be an anachronism.

Cagney began playing anti-establishment criminals at the beginning of the Depression, catering to the overall disgruntlement of the average American. The same public who might root for John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd against the banks. The government put pressure on the studios to exercise more civic-consciousness, and Cagney switched to playing tough cops and other authority figures.

White Heat is an unusual movie for Cagney, since it was his only film noir. But he did well in it and then let Richard Widmark come along and take all the roles written for “crazy criminals.” Widmark himself would transition from crazy crooks to tough crooks, then to tough cops and sergeants, etc.

3

I see I need to brush up on my Jimmy Cagney. He was a good and very versatile actor who played characters from Public Enemy No. 1 to George M Cohan.

Of the films of his I’ve seen, White Heat is definitely one of my favorites.

4

In The Public Enemy (1931) James Cagney character definitely has a death wish as at the end with just two pistols and 10 bullets between them he storms the bar of a rival gang and kills everyone inside of it.

5

I don’t think Cagney in White Heat had a death wish. He expected to succeed and only ended it because he didn’t want to be captured.

6

You can create a free account on the IMDB (Internet Movie Data Base), log in, and make a note of this on the page for that episode of Foyle’s War, under “Goofs.” (Love that series, BTW. Have watched the whole thing several times. Was there ever a more straight-arrow, honorable law enforcement officer than Christopher Foyle? I think not.)

I’ve done this more than a few times when I catch errors of one sort or another in shows and movies. The page where you submit your corrections is not particularly user-friendly, but it can be navigated.

7

I’ll do that, and spend entire days noting where dead peoples’ eyes should be dilated!

8

Note that the movie production code of the time required that criminals couldn’t end up successful. They had to go to prison, reform or die. So a lot of gangster movie plot lines involved willfully dying, e.g., in a shootout, at the end. Nothing specially reserved for Cagney.

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