FIVE THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT WHITE HEAT

One of my all-time favorite classic Hollywood movies was 1949's White Heat. The movie was nearly cinematic perfection. It included memorable roles for its stars: James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, and Edmond O'Brien. Even fans of this movie genre may not know everything about the film. Here are five pieces of trivia that you may not know about the film...

1. If the surprise expressed by James Cagney's fellow inmates during "the telephone game" scene in the prison dining room appears real, it's because it is. Director Raoul Walsh didn't tell the rest of the cast what was about to happen, so Cagney's outburst caught them by surprise. In fact, Walsh himself didn't know what Cagney had planned; the scene as written wasn't working, and Cagney had an idea. He told Walsh to put the two biggest extras playing cons in the mess-hall next to him on the bench (he used their shoulders to boost himself onto the table) and to keep the cameras rolling no matter what.

2. The unusually close relationship between Cody Jarrett and his domineering mother was inspired by real life bank robbers Kate Barker (aka "Ma Barker") and her sons.

3. Edmond O'Brien was rather in awe of James Cagney. He 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. When the cameras were rolling, Cagney would look like "an angry tiger," but as soon as Raoul Walsh 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."

4. Virginia Mayo revealed in an interview that James Cagney was hiding in a different spot than where she had been told he would be during the scene when they are reunited after he's been in prison. He then deliberately missed his cue, causing her shock and fear to be real. She said for a few seconds, she was actually afraid he was going to kill her.

5. In his autobiography Cagney by Cagney (1985), the actor said he found the script "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).

WHAT A CHARACTER: EDMOND O' BRIEN

What I love about character actors is that even though they may not be top billed in a movie or have the most lines, they usually will steal the movie away from the star. One such character actor like this was Edmond O'Brien. O'Brien was born Eamon Joseph O'Brien in Brooklyn, New York, on Septmeber 10, 1915.

He put on magic shows for children in his neighborhood with coaching from a neighbor, Harry Houdini. He performed under the title, "Neirbo the Great" ("neirbo" being "O'Brien" spelled backwards). An aunt who taught high school English and speech took him to the theatre from an early age and he developed an interest in acting. O'Brien began acting in plays at school. After attending Fordham University for six months, he went to Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre on a scholarship. He studied for two years under such teachers as Sanford Meisner; his classmates included Betty Garrett.

O'Brien's subsequent theatre work attracted the attention of Pandro Berman at RKO, who offered him a role as the romantic lead in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939). He returned to Broadway to play Mercutio opposite Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh in Romeo and Juliet.

RKO offered O'Brien a long term contract. His roles included A Girl, a Guy, and a Gob (1941) and Parachute Battalion (1941). The latter starred Nancy Kelly who O'Brien would later marry, although the union lasted less than a year.

During World War II, O'Brien served in the U.S. Army Air Forces and appeared in the Air Forces' Broadway play Winged Victory by Moss Hart. He appeared alongside Red Buttons, Karl Malden, Kevin McCarthy, Gary Merrill, Barry Nelson, and Martin Ritt. When the play was filmed in 1944, O'Brien reprised his stage performance, co-starring with Judy Holliday. He toured in the production for two years, appearing alongside a young Mario Lanza.

In 1948, O'Brien signed a long-term contract with Warner Bros., who cast him in the screen version of Lillian Hellman's Another Part of the Forest. This starred Fredric March, who also appeared with O'Brien in An Act of Murder(1948).

He was then cast as the undercover cop in White Heat (1949) opposite James Cagney. "He [Cagney] said he had only one rule," O'Brien noted. "He would tap his heart and he would say, "Play it from here, kid." He always did and I believe it's the best rule for any performer. He could play a scene 90 ways and never repeat himself. He did this to keep himself fresh. I try to do this whenever possible. O'Brien's role in this film was my personal favorite of his career, and it is one of my all-time favorite movies.

Following an appearance in Backfire (1950), his contract with Warner Bros. ended. Struggling with his weight and health problems, his career in movies suffered. He did more work in the 1950s on television. However, O'Brien hit the plateau of his moving actor when he won a Best Supporting Oscar for his role in 1955's The Barefoot Contessa. By the mid 1960s, his film career was winding down. Fantastic Voyage was his only movie in 1966, with two foreign flicks in 1967.

O'Brien seemed to have aged dramatically, looking much older than his 50-something years. He was still guest starring on episodic television, but made only one small, indie film over the next two years.

In 1972, he had a small role in They Only Kill Their Masters with James Garner. Orson Welles had cast him in a similarly minor role in his The Other Side of the Wind, which remained unfinished for decades. A few years ago, Peter Bogdanovich (who was an actor in the film) was trying to complete and release the film but the rights were split up between three competing parties. He did complete and edit the film but distribution is now being held up by the Iranian government, which owns the rights.

He made one more film, 99 and 44/100% Dead, a low-budget gobbler. Now on DVD, most critics originally hated the film but today there are a few fans. One of the latter calls it "mind-bending psychedelic neo-noir" and "pop art gangster satire." TV Guide describes it as "a perplexing mix of styles (that) clash and sputter." Variety is more vehement. "(It) starts like a house on fire, with directorial style to burn, but self-incinerates within the first half hour . . . a sophomoric and repulsive screenplay." O'Brien's role is described as "an elderly mobster" who hires hit man Richard Harris to eliminate his rival. Characterizing O'Brien as elderly at 59 inadvertently revealed the ravages of his illnesses.

By this time, the Alzheimer's disease which ultimately claimed him was becoming much more apparent. Little is known about his life during these years, but his children in later interviews says that the disease ravaged O'Brien quickly. Then, the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills did not accept patients with any kind of mental disease, so O'Brien lived out his final years in a rest home in Santa Monica. He died on May 9, 1985 at 69 and is buried in Culver City, CA. It was a sad end to a versatile and gifted character actor...