Maschinenpistolen (1949)

Maschinenpistolen: Directed by Raoul Walsh. With James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O’Brien, Margaret Wycherly. A psychopathic criminal with a mother complex makes a daring break from prison and leads his old gang in a chemical plant payroll heist.

“Cagneyu0026#39;s ability to shock is constant and each new gangster he creates shows a new facet of the psychopathic mind. White heat is the perfect antidote to the earlier movies- the structure where good triumphs in the last reel is still there but the killer, out of control is far less romanticised- if only current directors could develop this message. Cody Jarrett is the product of an over protective mother and thug father in the classic pattern. His whole view of the world is simplistic without subtlety or shade. Like all people of his type his self-confidence betrays him because he sees other people as stereotypes and while he has insight into the sorts of people who form his support network, he, very unwisely, dismisses the intelligence of the opposition. Like all gangsters, he has very little grasp of the outside world- throughout the film he is trapped in boxes, just like the man he kills in the boot of his car. Cagneyu0026#39;s portrayal is his greatest role- his avoidance of pathos and his refusal to bend emotionally mean that we are never invited to pity him- wherever there seems to be a point of access for the audience he delivers the lines with a flatness which denies us sympathy. His maudlin obsession with his mother invites us to loathe his infantile mental paralysis. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eNot enough comments praise the real co-star: Margaret Wycherley. She is a sinister mother who can handle the police and the gang and Codyu0026#39;s wife. Her world-weary cynicism, her obsession with her son delivered in the same dead-pan style is such a total antithesis to the usual hollywood u0026#39;caring parentu0026#39; model that she raises the character to the level of an Empress Livia or an Agrippina. The final scene works on multiple levels- the good-guy cannot easily destroy the villain- does the world blow up in Codyu0026#39;s face or are we being told that the Jarretts of the world will dominate until they bring the universe to destruction? A film which still demands analysis and does more to reveal the nature of criminal amorality than anything Tarrantino or Scorsese could produce- The latter types of director are too caught up in the u0026#39;romanceu0026#39; of the villainous life- they need to develop Raoul Walshu0026#39;s objectivity and Cagneyu0026#39;s penetration. It is Cagneyu0026#39;s unequivocal hatred of the character heu0026#39;s portraying and the personal honesty which allows him to objectify both the character he is playing and himself as an actor that makes the whole thing work. The crude method actors weu0026#39;re stuck with today could learn a lot from his Cody Jarrett!”