The Essentials: 10 Classic Gangster Movies

“White Heat” (1949)
A decade on from “The Roaring Twenties,” James Cagney and Raoul Walsh reteamed (though 1941’s musical romantic comedy “The Strawberry Blonde” came in between) for the gangster flick that might mark their finest hour. In a swing from the mostly sympathetic protagonist of that earlier film, Cagney plays the positively psychopathic Cody Jarrett, a ruthless gang leader with a semi-Oedipal fixation on his mother (Margaret Wycherly). Busted after a disastrous train robbery, but taking the fall for a lesser crime, he befriends fellow inmate Vic Pardo (Edmond O’Brien), letting him in on his breakout from the joint, without knowing that he’s actually an undercover agent tasked with finding Cody’s fence. While Eddie in “The Roaring Twenties” was redeemed by the end, Cody is an out-and-out monster from the first, executing innocents and allies alike, but Cagney gives him a vulnerability and a psychological realism that’s helped to make him one of the most memorable central characters in the genre (helped, in part, because O’Brien’s something of a blank slate in the film). With the actor turning 50 that year, his age is starting to show, and it makes Cody’s mummy’s boy as pathetic as he is terrifying (the DNA of Norman Bates seems to start here), and it’s the actor’s most iconic turn, not least when it comes to his fiery demise, screaming, famously, “Made it, Ma! Top of the world!” Walsh’s use of sociological subtext is less heavy-handed than it was with “The Roaring Twenties” (perhaps minus the final mushroom cloud…), and a tighter focus makes the film just as gripping, but more satisfying as a rich character study.

“The Big Combo” (1955)–
Even among this company, “The Big Combo” is a cop vs. gangster picture that’s mostly familiar to only the most avid film noir fan. Which is a shame, because it’s something of a lost classic, a nifty little B-picture with top-notch craft and an enjoyably twisted, convoluted plot. Cop Lt. Leonard Diamond (Cornel Wilde, who also produced the film, and was an Oscar nominee for playing Chopin in 1944’s “A Song To Remember“) is fixated with bringing down mobster Mr. Brown (Richard Comte, best known for playng Don Barzini in “The Godfather“), and equally fixated on the criminal’s moll, the troubled, suicidal Susan (Jean Wallace, Wilde’s wife at the time). The mention of the name ‘Alicia’ seems to point towards a way to bring down Brown — it seems to be his wife, who he may have disposed of by tying her to an anchor and throwing her in the Mediterranean — but Diamond, and many others, will pay the price before he has Brown at the other end of his gun. The cast aren’t the finest ever assembled for such a film; Conte is great value as the heavy, but Wilde’s pretty bland as the hero. But it’s the filmmaking, by the often undersung Joseph H. Lewis (most famous for “Bonnie & Clyde” and “Badlands” precursor “Gun Crazy“) who is the real star here. Thanks to the help of cinematographer John Alton (“An American In Paris“), the contrasty chiaroscuro of the film makes it one of the best-looking noirs ever made, Lewis throwing out shadows, fog and spotlights to ladle out on the atmosphere. And there’s some cunning formal experimentation too (see the way he drops out the sound when a henchman has his hearing aid taken out to be executed). The whole thing can be viewed on YouTube, so you can catch up with it yourself at your own convenience.

– Oliver Lyttelton, Jessica Kiang, Rodrigo Perez, Kevin Jagernauth