Vitals

James Cagney as Arthur “Cody” Jarrett, ruthless gang leader and devoted son

Los Angeles, California and Springfield, Illinois, Fall 1949 to Spring 1950

Film: White Heat
Release Date: September 2, 1949
Director: Raoul Walsh
Wardrobe Credit: Leah Rhodes

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Closing out Noirvmber but speeding into this winter’s Car Week, Raoul Walsh’s hard-boiled 1949 masterpiece White Heat erupts at the intersection of film noir and the classic Warner Brothers gangster film, which its star James Cagney had a hand in pioneering through his roles in The Public Enemy (1931), Angeles with Dirty Faces (1938), and The Roaring Twenties (1939). The latter had been his final criminal role for nearly a decade, as he evolved toward romantic and comedic roles including his Academy Award-winning performance as George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942).

But as his subsequent movies were unsuccessful with audiences, Cagney reluctantly returned to both the cinematic underworld and Jack L. Warner’s kingdom when he signed on to play the volatile gang leader Cody Jarrett in White Heat. Virginia Kellogg’s story was loosely inspired by the myth surrounding the ill-fated “Ma” Barker and her sons during the Depression-era crime wave, purchased for $2,000 by Warner Bros., where Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts spent six months adapting into a fictional screenplay where—much to Jack Warner’s frustration—they only envisioned Cagney to play Cody.

Following a $300,000 mail train robbery in the Sierra Nevada mountains that left four crewmen dead, Cody leads his gang’s retreat from their mountain hideout, splitting off with his sultry wife Verna (Virginia Mayo) and domineering mother (Margaret Wycherly) to hole up in a motel on the outskirts of Los Angeles. We’ve already seen Ma’s powerful influence over her son, both supporting him when he has his mind-splitting migraines and gently suggesting that he execute a wounded gang member rather than take the chance he’ll talk.

When Ma risks a trip into town to buy Cody’s favorite strawberries for him, she picks up a police tail that has Cody again at the wheel of their Mercury to make their getaway. After a night-time police chase through the streets of L.A., Cody ducks the Mercury into a drive-in theater and develops his plan to take the fall for a hotel heist in Illinois that was the same day as their deadly train robbery, giving himself a 2,000-mile alibi:

While those hoodlums were killing those innocent people on the train, I was pushing in a hotel in Springfield! Couldn’t be in both places at once, could I?

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What’d He Wear?

Pushing 50 when he starred in White Heat, James Cagney was around the same age as the likes of Depression-era desperadoes John Dillinger, “Pretty Boy” Floyd, and Fred Barker—the latter the most likely inspiration for Cody Jarrett, given his mother fixation. Though the setting is contemporary to its late 1940s production, White Heat recalls that early ’30s crime wave as those outlaws made headlines while raiding banks in their tailored suits, adding a dash of unearned romanticism to their oft-deadly exploits.

Warner Brothers’ prolific costume designer Leah Rhodes was fresh off her Academy Award win for Adventures of Don Juan (1948) when she was tapped to dress White Heat‘s crooks, chicks, and canaries. When not robbing a train in a corduroy coat or sticking up a payroll office in a leather flight jacket, Cody always dresses in a double-breasted suit and dark ties, completed with an appropriately villainous dark hat and cuff links. Especially when patterned in a chalk-stripe as was found everywhere from the boardroom to the underworld, Cody’s suits even recall Cagney’s own wardrobe for his star-making role in The Public Enemy (1931), nearly two decades earlier.

The First Chalkstripe Suit

After leading his gang’s getaway from their hideout in the Sierras, Cody arrives in Los Angeles wearing a medium-dark wool suit with a muted but unmistakable chalkstripe. The double-breasted jacket follows a common style for the era, cut with wide peak lapels that each have a buttonhole and sweep to a 6×2-button front that Cody typically wears with only the lowest button fastened—perhaps intended to allow quicker access to the gat stuck in his trouser waistband.

These reverse-pleated trousers are almost certainly tailored like his others, with a long rise to a beltless waistband (presumably held up with suspenders), and finished with turn-ups (cuffs) that break over the tops of his black leather cap-toe oxfords.

The ventless jacket also has a welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, and sleeves finished with three-button cuffs.

Cody’s cotton shirts are light-colored but likely not white. In addition to front plackets and double (French) cuffs worn with links, these shirts are styled with spread collars that are wide enough to accommodate the hefty Windsor knot of his black-presenting silk tie.

Echoing the traditional black-hatted villains of Western serials, the irredeemable Cody sports a dark fedora—likely crafted from black felt and finished with a black ribbed silk grosgrain band around the base of its tall, pinched crown.

Cody always wears the same watch, which appears to have a silver ring around the inside of the dial and is secured to a metal expanding bracelet.

The Second Chalkstripe Suit

Cody escapes from prison to reunite with his gang—with a quick stop to execute the traitorous “Big Ed” Somers (Steve Cochran) and retrieve the duplicitous Verna. At a house where they stop along the way, he changes out of his prison denim into a suit almost identical to the one he had been wearing earlier, save for a darker flannel cloth and perhaps more muted stripe.

The 6×2-button double-breasted suit jacket and reverse-pleated trousers are similarly cut, and he wears another non-white cotton shirt with a spread collar, front placket, and French cuffs. His tie is also so dark to present as black on screen, albeit with a subtly tonal wide-scaled floral pattern.

 

For what it’s worth, contemporary promotional artwork paints Cody’s wardrobe through these latter scenes with a navy-blue striped suit, white shirt, and scarlet-red tie. However, this was almost never grounded in the colors that actors actually wore, rather reflecting what publicity artists deemed would look best on posters and lobby art.

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The Car

Ma attracts police attention in her 1941 Buick, so Cody leads his wife and mother into his dark 1949 Mercury Sport Sedan. Cody curiously tells them that “we’ll leave the sedan, that’s the car they’ll be lookin’ for… you bring the bags, and I’ll get the coupe!” Of course, the Mercury Sport Sedan is another four-door sedan, albeit differentiated from the Buick with its rear suicide doors—so nicknamed for the safety hazards posed by hinging at the rear rather than the front.

Ford Motor Company launched its Mercury marque in 1939 with four body styles of the Mercury Eight, named for Ford’s formidable flathead V8 under the hood. Following a wartime hiatus and postwar redesign, the third and final generation debuted in for the 1949 model year.

Even at the time of its inception, the ’49 Merc was a popular car to be customized into a low rider or hot rod, though Cody drives a stock four-door sedan that was presumably chosen for its ability to blend in while also letting that flathead V8 generate 110 horsepower, said to push the Merc up to over 80 miles per hour when evading police pursuit. This was the only model year of the full-size Mercury’s third generation that only offered a column-shifted three-speed manual, as the “Merc-O-Matic” automatic transmission was offered from the 1950 model year onward.

1949 Mercury Eight Sport Sedan

Body Style: 4-door sedan

Layout: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive (RWD)

Engine: 255 cu. in. (4.2 L) Ford Flathead V8 with Holley 2-barrel carburetor

Power: 110 hp (82 kW; 112 PS) @ 3600 RPM

Torque: 200 lb·ft (271 N·m) @ 2000 RPM

Transmission: 3-speed manual

Wheelbase: 118 inches (2997 mm)

Length: 206.8 inches (5253 mm)

Width: 76.4 inches (1941 mm)

Height: 64.8 inches (1646 mm)

1951 was the final year for the Mercury Eight, which was retooled into the Custom and Monterey models as the marquis finally diversified its passenger vehicle lineup.

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The Guns

The trigger-happy Cody Jarrett’s go-to sidearm is a Colt Detective Special, keeping one stashed above the sun visor in his Mercury… perfectly positioned for him to draw and shoot his way out of a trap when cornered by U.S. Treasury investigator Phillip Evans (John Archer).

The Detective Special became a quick favorite among cops and crooks alike after Colt introduced it in 1927. Though some where produced with three-inch barrels, the Detective Special was most popular with the “snub-nosed” two-inch barrel that reinvented the concept of a belly gun that balanced concealment and power with its six rounds of .38 Special.

After escaping from prison, Cody briefly handles a M1911A1 semi-automatic pistol specifically for a scene that requires it to be fired—a rarity during an era when .45-caliber blanks were notably unreliable. Per its official designation, this John M. Browning pistol design was first adopted by the U.S. Army in March 1911. Colt was the primary producer of M1911 pistols for the first several decades of its lifetime, introducing a “Government Model” for the civilian market alongside the mil-spec M1911 pistols that widely saw combat during most American military combat during the 20th century.

The design was “improved” in the 1920s with a shorter trigger and hammer spur, longer grip safety spur, and curved mainspring housing, among other modifications. Pistols produced in this configuration were designated as the M1911A1, as Cody clearly uses based on these visible differences.

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How to Get the Look

When not dressed for his larcenous work, Cody Jarrett signals how seriously he takes himself by exclusively wearing businesslike chalkstripe double-breasted suits with dark ties and his ever-present dark hat.

• Dark chalkstripe wool suit:
  • Double-breasted 6×2-button jacket with wide peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Reverse-pleated trousers with beltless waistband, side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Light-colored cotton shirt with spread collar, front placket, and double/French cuffs
• Black silk tie
• Black leather cap-toe oxford shoes
• Black felt fedora with grosgrain band and self-edged brim
• Wristwatch with round ringed dial on metal expanding bracelet

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Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.