“The further presence of Edmond O'Brien indicates how many American films employ an investigative character around whom the story is organized. Raoul Walsh's White Heat does not simply accept this device. Instead it builds the ‘plant' into a subtle study in betrayal. Cody Jarrett (James Cagney) is bad and dangerous, beyond question, but he has such drive, style and pathos in Cagney's performance, such dignity, that we cannot erase the feeling of distaste for the trick being played upon him. O'Brien was so resourceful an actor that he lets us see how far the weight of Cody's trust and affection has complicated his job.
“But that is a sidelight. White Heat looks increasingly like an exultant roar of self-explosion from the old Hollywood--an uninhibited return to gangsterism, an insistence that the bravura of stardom is all-important, and that pathological heroism has always best represented the crazy passion of movies. Margaret Wycherly is honored here for one of three sombre movie mothers, the others coming in Sergeant York and Keeper of the Flame. Moreover, in her scenes with Cagney we feel a true, perverse love story in the meeting of two unique and outrageous actors. Without disturbing the framework of an action thriller, the Jarretts take us so deep into the psyche that Psycho was a little less of a shock.” David Thomson