White Heat

Pop Culture 101 - WHITE HEAT Cody Jarret's final defiant shout, "Made it, Ma. Top of the world!" has become one of the most familiar lines in film history, although often erroneously quoted as simply "Top of the world, Ma!" The prison scenes in White Heat were spoofed in Naked Gun 33 1/3 (1994). Scenes from the movie were also edited into the comedy Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982), in which, through an incredible editing feat, Steve Martin as a '40s private eye interacts with various tough guys and shady characters from classic Hollywood films. In the black comedy, Fade to Black (1980), Dennis Christopher plays a movie-obsessed fan who retreats into a fantasy world, eventually becoming a homicidal killer. There are numerous movie references throughout the film such as his recreation of the famous wheelchair murder scene from Kiss of Death (1947), as well as an ending copied from White Heat ­Christopher goes up flames atop Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. The climax of the film noir thriller, Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), is an homage to White Heat ­ both Robert Ryan and Harry Belafonte have a shootout on top of an oil storage tank and both perish in the explosive fire that follows. By Rob Nixon

Trivia and Other Fun Stuff on WHITE HEAT White Heat was not James Cagney's last gangster role but it is generally considered his most extreme and enjoyable performance as a trigger-happy criminal; he would again play mobsters in Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950) opposite Barbara Payton and Love Me or Leave Me (1955), which earned him an Oscar® nomination for Best Actor as the gangster boyfriend of real-life singer Ruth Etting (portrayed by Doris Day in the film). In the film Each Dawn I Die (1939), Cagney had a prison freakout scene that would help prepare him later for the even more emotional outburst he has in White Heat. Wrongly convicted and incarcerated, Cagney is driven by the brutal conditions of the prison to the point of hysterical nervous collapse. "I'm gonna get outta here if I have to kill every screw in the joint!" he screams at the warden. Director Raoul Walsh was one of the 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which among other things gives out the annual Academy Awards®. Cagney and Walsh made three other films together: The Roaring Twenties (1939), Strawberry Blonde (1941) and A Lion Is in the Streets (1953). Cagney and Virginia Mayo followed their turn as the murderous married couple in White Heat with a very different kind of picture, the musical The West Point Story (1950). "Tough guy" James Cagney's first job as an entertainer was as a female dancer in a chorus line. Edmond O'Brien had been promised equal billing with Cagney, but at the last minute the studio decided against it. Since Cagney hadn't made many movies since leaving Warner Bros. in the early '40s, publicists thought if audiences saw "Cagney" and "O'Brien" billed together, they would assume it was a reissue of one of the six movies Cagney made with Pat O'Brien between 1934 and 1940 and avoid the film. Cagney and Pat O'Brien made one final film together many years later ­ Ragtime (1981). Screenplay authors Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts remained writing partners for the rest of their careers, turning out scripts for such movies as Come Fill the Cup (1951), which also starred Cagney; the Clark Gable film Band of Angels (1957); and the thriller Midnight Lace (1960), with Doris Day. The two were also the writers/producers responsible for the crime-oriented TV series Mannix, Charlie's Angels and Nero Wolfe. Margaret Wycherly (Ma Jarrett) presented a very different (and far more traditional and heart-warming) image of motherly love opposite Gary Cooper in Sergeant York (1941). Supporting player John Archer (federal agent Philip Evans) was once married to actress Marjorie Lord, who appeared opposite Cagney in Johnny Come Lately (1943). She is best known as Danny Thomas' wife on the TV series Make Room for Daddy (1957-1964). The couple's daughter is actress Anne Archer, who appeared in Fatal Attraction (1987), Patriot Games (1992) and Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993). By Rob Nixon Famous Quotes from WHITE HEAT Cody Jarrett: Stuffy, huh? I'll give it some air. (Cody talking to man in trunk as he prepares to shoot holes in the car). Cody Jarrett: A copper, a copper, how do you like that boys? A copper and his name is Fallon. And we went for it, I went for it. Treated him like a kid brother. And I was gonna split fifty-fifty with a copper! Cody Jarrett: Made it, Ma! Top of the world! Verna Jarrett: Always "somebody tipped them off." Never "the cops are smart." (Verna making a reference to Cody's paranoid nature). Cody Jarrett: You know something, Verna, if I turn my back for long enough for Big Ed to put a hole in it, there'd be a hole in it. Verna Jarrett: I'd look good in a mink coat, honey. Cody Jarrett: You'd look good in a shower curtain. Hank Fallon: You put it on a pole, wind a spool of silk thread around it, and you hold the pole over the water. Then you sit under a nice shady tree and relax. After a while, a hungry fish comes along, takes a nip at your hook, and you've got dinner. For the next two weeks, I'm not gonna think about anything except the eternal struggle between man and the fish... Engineer: What's this, a hold-up? Cody Jarrett: Naw, naw, you're seven minutes late. We're just changin' engineers. Zuckie Hommell: Sounds bad, Cody. Cody Jarrett: Why don't you give 'em my address too... Gas Station Attendant: Wise guys, didn't even buy gas. Roy Parker: You wouldn't kill me in cold blood, would ya? Cody Jarrett: No, I'll let ya warm up a little. Cody Jarrett: If that battery's dead, it will have company! Reader: That's a phone call that will cost more than a nickel! Cody Jarrett: Next time bring the gun.

The script for White Heat was based on a story written for the screen by Virginia Kellogg. She followed this film with another stark and brutal prison drama, with the added twist of setting it in a women's institution: Caged (1950). In his autobiography Cagney by Cagney (1985), the actor said he found the script for White Heat "very formula...the old knock-down-drag-'em-out again, without a touch of imagination or originality." Finding Cody Jarrett to be "just another murderous thug," Cagney said he suggested to the writers to pattern the character of Jarrett and his mother after the legendary outlaws Ma Barker and her boys and to make Cody a psychotic. It has also been said that Cagney improvised some of his dialogue and decided to play Jarrett as a man plagued by blinding migraines (that only his mother could soothe). In a memo dated May 5, 1941, during pre-production of Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), James Cagney's brother William (the film's associate producer) and screenwriter Robert Buckner told Warner Brothers producer Hal Wallis that during story conferences they could find no way to sustain the close relationship between the character of George M. Cohan (Cagney's Oscar®-winning role) and his family. Apart from several other reasons, the memo said, "it would be hard to swallow Jimmy Cagney as a guy with a mother or father complex." But Cagney with a mother complex is exactly the key to his performance in White Heat. By Rob Nixon

Although James Cagney found White Heat to be a good picture on a number of levels, in his 1985 autobiography Cagney called the film "another cheapjack job" because of its limited shooting schedule and the studio's decision to "put everybody in it they could get for six bits." Cagney was particularly irritated by the fact that he pressed them to cast his old friend Frank McHugh in the small role of Tommy in order to bring a touch of humor and lightness to the otherwise heavy piece. According to the star, Warners repeatedly agreed to do it, putting Cagney off until the first day of shooting when he was told McHugh wasn't available. Cagney found out later McHugh had never even been asked. Cagney took credit for having the idea for the scene in which Cody sits in his mother's lap. He said he told director Raoul Walsh, "Let's see if we can get away with this," and Walsh agreed. But in his 1974 autobiography Each Man in His Time (which film writer Leonard Maltin has called "highly entertaining fiction with an occasional nod at the truth"), Walsh took credit for the idea and said the scene worked because Cagney and Margaret Wycherly made it so convincing. The spectacular ending aside, the most famous scene in the picture is undoubtedly the one in which Jarrett gets the news in prison of his mother's death. The news is passed down from inmate to inmate at the prison mess hall tables until it finally reaches Jarrett, who explodes into psychotic grief, staggering around the room landing punches on everyone who gets in his way while letting out a kind of strangled, primal cry. Cagney was once asked by a reporter if he had to "psych" himself up for the scene. Cagney responded, "You don't psych yourself up for these things, you do them," reiterating his very non-Method philosophy that working on inward emotional motivation is a waste of time leading to a performance solely for the actor himself. According to Cagney, an actor shouldn't psych himself up to be the character, he should simply understand the character and play it for the audience. His only preparation for the scene, he later said, was remembering a visit as a youngster to see a friend's uncle who was in a psychiatric hospital. "My God, what an education," he said. "The shrieks, the screams of those people under restraint. I remembered those cries, saw that they fitted, and I called on my memory to do as required." When Cody gets the news of his mother's death, Cagney plays his first reaction merely looking down, building into the emotional explosion. Years later, he explained to Los Angeles Times film critic Charles Champlin, "That first agony is private. If I'd looked up right away and started bellowing, it would have been stock company, 1912." Walsh said of his star: "Jimmy, I can honestly say, was the best actor I ever directed." Edmond O'Brien was also rather in awe of his co-star. In the book Cagney, author Michael Freedland said O'Brien found out how generous an actor and gentle a person Cagney could be. In a close-up the two were playing together, O'Brien felt Cagney standing with increasing pressure on the top of O'Brien's right foot, forcing the younger actor to move in that direction. O'Brien realized if he had not done so, he would have been out of frame and Cagney would have had the scene to himself. Freedland also relates how when the cameras were rolling, Cagney would look like "an angry tiger," but as soon as the director yelled cut, the star would quietly go up to O'Brien with a poem he had written and ask him in a whisper, "Would you mind telling me what you think of this?" When it came time to return to work, Cagney would plead, "Please, don't tell anyone about it." Location work was done in the California towns of Van Nuys and Chatsworth (in a railroad tunnel). The explosive finale was shot in Torrance, Calif. By Rob Nixon

Brutal, psychotic criminal Cody Jarrett trusts no one, least of all his unfaithful wife Verna and overly ambitious right-hand man Ed Sommers; no one, that is, except his equally criminal mother, the only one who can soothe the blinding migraines that plague him. Sent to jail on a charge he fakes to avoid conviction for the more serious crimes of train robbery and murder, Cody takes into his gang a smalltime crook named Vic Pardo, who is in reality undercover cop Hank Fallon, sent to infiltrate the Jarrett gang. Eventually Cody, Pardo and several others escape from prison and regroup for futher criminal activities. But after a botched payroll-robbery at an oil refinery, Cody learns that Pardo is a special agent and tries to kill him. An exciting, dynamic film in its own right, White Heat also stands out as the flaming finale to the era of stark, fast-paced crime films made famous by Warner Brothers and James Cagney (among other stars) from the 1930s on, films in which the focus was on the often violent but charismatic gangster rather than the law enforcement officials who hunt him. It was also the apotheosis of Cagney's brilliant career, a kind of summing up of the memorable outlaw characters he had created. White Heat, then, is a chance to catch Cagney one last time as the no-holds barred gangster he created in such pictures as The Public Enemy (1931) and Angels with Dirty Faces (1938). Here, however, the character has been pushed to the extreme, and the progression to Cody Jarrett can be traced through a trio of gangster films made by director Raoul Walsh, of which this was the last. In The Roaring Twenties (1939), Cagney's criminal is seen in the context of history and society, a man whose ambition and drive is put to service on the wrong side of the law by the circumstances of time and place. In High Sierra (1941), Walsh cast Humphrey Bogart as Roy "Mad Dog" Earle, a troubled man on the run, the gangster as the last individual in an increasingly soulless world. With White Heat the archetype is pushed to the very edge, depicted as a vicious man gripped by insanity. It's fitting that the image Cagney was so identified with should go out with such a bang. The spectacular ending aside, the most famous scene in White Heat is undoubtedly the one in which Jarrett gets the news in prison of his mother's death. The news is passed down from inmate to inmate at the prison mess hall tables until it finally reaches Jarrett, who explodes into psychotic grief, staggering around the room landing punches on everyone who gets in his way while letting out a kind of strangled, primal cry. Cagney was once asked by a reporter if he had to "psych" himself up for the scene. Cagney responded, "You don't psych yourself up for these things, you do them," reiterating his very non-Method philosophy that working on inward emotional motivation is a waste of time leading to a performance solely for the actor himself. According to Cagney, an actor shouldn't psych himself up to be the character, he should simply understand the character and play it for the audience. His only preparation for the scene, he later said, was remembering a visit as a youngster to see a friend's uncle who was in a psychiatric hospital. "My God, what an education," he said. "The shrieks, the screams of those people under restraint. I remembered those cries, saw that they fitted, and I called on my memory to do as required." Director: Raoul Walsh Producer: Louis F. Edelman Screenplay: Virginia Kellogg (story), Ivan Goff, Ben Roberts (script) Cinematographer: Sidney Hickox Editor: Owen Marks Art Director: Edward Carrere Original Music: Max Steiner Cast: James Cagney (Cody Jarrett), Virginia Mayo (Verna Jarrett), Edmond O'Brien (Vic Pardo/Hank Fallon), Margaret Wycherly (Ma Jarrett), Steve Cochran (Big Ed Somers), John Archer (Philip Evans). BW-114m. Closed captioning. Descriptive video. by Rob Nixon

AWARDS & HONORS: Although many (including co-star Virginia Mayo) thought Cagney's performance should have earned him a second Academy Award®, the only nomination White Heat received was Virginia Kellogg's for Best Story. Kellogg and screenplay writers Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts were all nominated for an Edgar Allen Poe (mystery writers) Award. The Critics Corner on WHITE HEAT "Red-hot box office. Raoul Walsh's direction has kept the pace sharp and exciting for the nearly two-hour length." ­ Variety. "Mr. Cagney, representing a homicidal maniac whose favorite girl is his dear old two-gun mother, comes up with a performance so full of menace that I hereby recommend him for whatever Oscar® is given an artist for rising above the asininity of his producers." ­ John McCarten, The New Yorker. "To let the kids see Cagney as he was in happier days, Warner Brothers has produced a wild and exciting mixture of mayhem called White Heat.... They screech with joy when the hero begins pummeling society with both hands and both feet, a tigerish snarl on his lips. The old Jimmy is back again." ­ Life. "Cagney plays it with such dynamic arrogance, such beautiful laying out of detail, that he gives the whole picture a high charge.... Director Raoul Walsh has gathered vivid acting from his whole cast. Miss Mayo, in fact, is excellent as the gangster's disloyal spouse ­ brassy, voluptuous and stupid to just the right degree. Edmond O'Brien does a slick job.... Steve Cochran is ugly as an outlaw, John Archer is stout...and Margaret Wycherly is darkly invidious as the gangster's beloved old 'ma.'" ­ Bosley Crowther, The New York Times. "White Heat is in the hurtling tabloid tradition of the gangster movies of the '30s, but its matter-of-fact violence is a new, postwar style." ­ Time. "Fred Astaire dancing, Wallace Beery squinting one eye. Garbo's sniff. Clark Gable's silly smile and Cagney's lightning fist are things you remember in a decade's film going ­ and Cagney's fist (bless it) is here with us again after years of rest." ­ Paul Holt, London's Daily Herald. "Mr. Cagney is never less than an actor of experience and competence who knows precisely what he is doing. The trouble is that this particular part is one he knows all too well." ­ The Times (London). "This Freudian gangster picture...is very obvious, and it's so primitive and outrageous in its flamboyance that it seems to have been made much earlier than it was. But this flamboyance is also what makes some of its scenes stay with you.... [Cagney] does his most operatic acting in this film, and he has his wildest death scene: he literally explodes." ­ Pauline Kael, 5001 Nights at the Movies. "The most gruesome aggregation of brutalities ever presented under the guise of entertainment." - Cue. "This searing melodrama reintroduced the old Cagney and then some: spellbinding suspense sequences complemented his vivid and hypnotic portrayal." - Halliwell's Film & Video Guide. Compiled by Rob Nixon

Virginia Mayo, the delectable, "peaches and cream" leading lady of the 40s, who on occasion, could prove herself quite capable in dramatic parts, died on January 17 at a nursing home in Thousand Oaks, CA of pneumonia and heart failure. She was 84. She was born Virginia Clara Jones in St. Louis, Missouri on November 30, 1920, and got her show business start at the age of six by enrolling in her aunt's School of Dramatic Expression. While still in her teens, she joined the nightclub circuit, and after paying her dues for a few years traveling across the country, she eventually caught the eye of movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn. He gave her a small role in her first film, starring future husband, Michael O'Shea, in Jack London (1943). She then received minor billing as a "Goldwyn Girl," in the Danny Kaye farce, Up In Arms (1944). Almost immediately, Goldwyn saw her natural movement, comfort and ease in front of the camera, and in just her fourth film, she landed a plumb lead opposite Bob Hope in The Princess and the Pirate (1944). She proved a hit with moviegoers, and her next two films would be with her most frequent leading man, Danny Kaye: Wonder Man (1945), and The Kid from Brooklyn (1946). Both films were big hits, and the chemistry between Mayo and Kaye - the classy, reserved blonde beauty clashing with the hyperactive clown - was surprisingly successful. Mayo did make a brief break from light comedy, and gave a good performance as Dana Andrews' unfaithful wife, Marie, in the popular post-war drama, The Best Years of Their Lives (1946); but despite the good reviews, she was back with Kaye in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), and A Song Is Born (1948). It wasn't until the following year that Mayo got the chance to sink her teeth into a meaty role. That film, White Heat (1949), and her role, as Cody Jarrett's (James Cagney) sluttish, conniving wife, Verna, is memorable for the sheer ruthlessness of her performance. Remember, it was Verna who shot Cody¿s mother in the back, and yet when Cody confronts her after he escapes from prison to exact revenge for her death, Verna effectively places the blame on Big Ed (Steve Cochran): Verna: I can't tell you Cody! Cody: Tell me! Verna: Ed...he shot her in the back!!! Critics and fans purred over the newfound versatility, yet strangely, she never found a part as juicy as Verna again. Her next film, with Cagney, The West Point Story (1950), was a pleasant enough musical; but her role as Lady Wellesley in Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. (1951), co-starring Gregory Peck, was merely decorative; that of a burlesque queen attempting to earn a university degree in the gormless comedy, She¿s Working Her Way Through College (1952); and worst of all, the Biblical bomb, The Silver Chalice (1954) which was, incidentally, Paul Newman's film debut, and is a film he still derides as the worst of his career. Realizing that her future in movies was slowing down, she turned to the supper club circuit in the 60s with her husband, Michael O'Shea, touring the country in such productions as No, No Nanette, Barefoot in the Park, Hello Dolly, and Butterflies Are Free. Like most performers who had outdistanced their glory days with the film industry, Mayo turned to television for the next two decades, appearing in such shows as Night Gallery, Police Story, Murder She Wrote, and Remington Steele. She even earned a recurring role in the short-lived NBC soap opera, Santa Barbara (1984-85), playing an aging hoofer named "Peaches DeLight." Mayo was married to O'Shea from 1947 until his death in 1973. She is survived by their daughter, Mary Johnston; and three grandsons. by Michael T. Toole

Six of Warner Bros. greatest classic gangster films - starring Hollywood legends Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson -- will be available on DVD January 25 for the very first time as the Warner Bros. Pictures Gangsters Collection. The six-disc set from Warner Home Video (WHV) will include The Public Enemy, White Heat, Angels with Dirty Faces, Little Caesar, The Petrified Forest and The Roaring Twenties. For more information, visit The Official Site. All six titles have been fully restored and digitally remastered, and are loaded with special features including historian commentaries and new making-of featurettes. Each disc also contains an exclusive "Warner Night at the Movies" segment. Hosted by Leonard Maltin, each bonus feature recreates moviegoer attractions such as newsreels, comedy shorts, cartoons and trailers from the years each film was released. In addition, The Public Enemy DVD contains several minutes of recovered footage not seen in more than 70 years. Major Hollywood studios in the '30s and '40s were each known for their distinctive styles (MGM for its musicals; Universal for its horror films, etc.). Warner Bros. was best known for firmly establishing the genre of gangster films, which were also noted for their socially conscious themes as well as their simple visual look (low key lighting and sparse sets). Nowhere were these elements more prominent than in the films of the Warner Bros. Pictures Gangsters Collection. "We are thrilled to be finally releasing these highly-demanded films in an exciting new DVD collection," said George Feltenstein, WHV's Senior Vice President Classic Catalog. "These are the films that defined our studio in its early years, and which in turn defined the gangster genre. One only has to recall Jimmy Cagney squashing his grapefruit into Mae Clarke's face (The Public Enemy); Cagney yelling "Made it, Ma! Top o' the world!" (White Heat); or Robinson barking, "This is Rico speaking. Rico! R-I-C-O! Rico! Little Caesar, that's who!" to know that these signature Warner Bros. titles represent the genre's best of the best. These films are truly timeless in their appeal, and we insisted on waiting until full restorations were completed before we would bring them to the discerning DVD marketplace. I trust that all the fans will agree it will have been well worth the wait." Details of The Gangsters Collection Films The Public Enemy (1931) The Public Enemy showcases James Cagney's powerful 1931 breakthrough performance as streetwise tough guy Tom Powers, but only because production chief Darryl F. Zanuck made a late casting change. When shooting began, Cagney had a secondary role but Zanuck soon spotted Cagney's screen dominance and gave him the star part. From that moment, an indelible genre classic and an enduring star career were both born. Bristling with '20s style, dialogue and desperation under the masterful directorial eye of William A. Wellman, this is a virtual time capsule of the Prohibition era: taut, gritty and hard-hitting. Contains several restored scenes (deleted from subsequent reissue versions due to enforcement of the Production code) from the original release version of the film, unseen since 1931. Public Enemy DVD special features include: - Leonard Maltin Hosts Warner Night at the Movies 1931 with Newsreel, Comedy Short "The Eyes Have It," Cartoon "Smile, Darn Ya, Smile" and 1931 Trailer Gallery - New Featurette "Beer and Blood: Enemies of the Public" - Commentary by Film Historian Robert Sklar - 1954 Re-release Foreword White Heat (1949) Playing a psychotic thug, Cody Jarrett, devoted to his hard-boiled "ma," James Cagney gives a performance to match his electrifying work in The Public Enemy. Bracingly directed by Raoul Walsh, this fast-paced thriller tracing Jarrett's violent life in and out of jail is among the most vivid screen performances of Cagney's career, and the excitement it generates will put you on top of the world! White Heat DVD special features include: - Leonard Maltin Hosts Warner Night at the Movies 1949 with Newsreel, Comedy Short "So You Think You¿re Not Guilty," Cartoon "Homeless Hare" and 1949 Trailer Gallery - New Featurette "White Heat: Top of the World" - Commentary by Film Historian Drew Casper Angels With Dirty Faces (1938) Off-screen pals James Cagney and Pat O'Brien team up for the sixth time in this enduring gangster classic nominated for three Academy Awards®. Cagney's Rocky Sullivan is a charismatic tough kid from New York's Hell's Kitchen whose underworld rise makes him a hero to a gang of slum punks. O'Brien is Father Connolly, the boyhood chum-turned-priest who vows to end Rocky's influence. Directed by Michael Curtiz (Casablanca), the film also stars Humphrey Bogart and Ann Sheridan. Cagney's role as Rocky earned him the 1938 New York Film Critics Award for Best Actor along with his first Best Actor Oscar® nomination. Angels With Dirty Faces DVD special features include: - Leonard Maltin Hosts Warner Night at the Movies 1938 with Newsreel, Musical Short "Out Where the Stars Begin," Cartoon "Porky and Daffy" and 1938 Trailer Gallery - New Featurette "Angels with Dirty Faces: Whaddya Hear? Whaddya Say?" - Commentary by Film Historian Dana Polan - Audio-Only Bonus: Radio Production with the Film's 2 Stars Little Caesar (1930) "R-I-C-O, Little Caesar, that's who!" Edward G. Robinson bellowed into the phone and Hollywood got the message. The 37-year-old Robinson, not gifted with matinee-idol looks, was nonetheless a first-class star. Little Caesar is the tale of pugnacious Caesar Enrico Bandello (Robinson), a hoodlum with a Chicago-sized chip on his shoulder, few attachments, fewer friends and no sense of underworld diplomacy. Little Caesar DVD special features include: - Leonard Maltin Hosts Warner Night at the Movies 1930 with Newsreel, Spencer Tracy Short "The Hard Guy," Cartoon "Lady Play Your Mandolin" and 1930/31 Trailer Gallery - New Featurette "Little Caesar: End of Rico, Beginning of the Antihero" - Commentary by Film Historian Richard B. Jewell - 1954 Re-release Foreword The Petrified Forest (1936) A rundown diner bakes in the Arizona heat. Inside, fugitive killer Duke Mantee sweats out a manhunt, holding disillusioned writer Alan Squier, young Gabby Maple and a handful of others hostage. The Petrified Forest, Robert E. Sherwood's 1935 Broadway success about survival of the fittest, hit the screen a year later with Leslie Howard and Humphrey Bogart magnificently recreating their stage roles and Bette Davis ably reteaming with her Of Human Bondage co-star Howard. The film presented Bogart with his first major starring role and helped launch his brilliant movie career. The Petrified Forest DVD special features include: - Leonard Maltin Hosts Warner Night at the Movies 1936 with Newsreel, Musical Short "Rhythmitis," Cartoon "The Coo Coo Nut Grove" and 1936 Trailer Gallery - New Featurette "The Petrified Forest: Menace in the Desert" - Commentary by Bogart Biographer Eric Lax - Audio-Only Bonus: Radio Adaptation Starring Bogart, Tyrone Power and Joan Bennett The Roaring Twenties (1939 The speakeasy era never roared louder than in this gangland chronicle directed by Raoul Walsh (White Heat). Against a backdrop of newsreel-like montages and narration, The Roaring Twenties follows the life of jobless war veteran Eddie Bartlett (James Cagney) who turns bootlegger, dealing in "bottles instead of battles." However, battles await Eddie both inside and out of his growing empire. Outside are territorial feuds and gangland bloodlettings and inside is the treachery of his double-dealing associate George Hally (Humphrey Bogart). The Roaring Twenties DVD special features include: - Leonard Maltin Hosts Warner Night at the Movies 1939 with Newsreel, Musical Short "All Girl Revue," Comedy Short "The Great Library Misery," Cartoon "Thugs with Dirty Mugs" and 1939 Trailer Gallery - New Featurette "The Roaring Twenties: The World Moves on" - Commentary by Film Historian Lincoln Hurst