Academy Award winner James Cagney delivers a tour-de-force performanceas a murderously psychotic criminal mastermind with an overpoweringmother complex in the crime thriller White Heat.While in prison, Cody Jarrett (Cagney) befriends an undercover cop(Edmund O'Brien) posing as a young thug--appearing to idolize thehard-bitten gangster who suffers from semi-epileptic seizures, outburstsof frightening violence and an almost incestuous attachment to hismother. Released from prison, Jarrett plots a seemingly perfect heist,unaware that his partners plan to kill him and his right-hand man isworking for the police. Cornered, Jarrett chooses to go out in anexplosive act of self-immolation rather than surrender in this classicof the gangster genre. Academy Award nomination for Best Writing, MotionPicture Story (Virginia Kellogg.