I have to agree with Bogdonavich below – that the prison mess hall scene in White Heat when Cagney freaks out – is one of those moments in movie history that you never forget – a high water mark for actors, if you will.
I wrote about it (and the whole movie) here.
He just GOES. I tried to find a long-shot of the moment, but failed – The picture above is when he hears the news of his mother’s death – BEFORE the freak out. Amazing acting.
From Who the Hell’s in It: Conversations with Hollywood’s Legendary Actors
… that psychopathic mama’s-boy killer in White Heat, which also features two of my favorite Cagney scenes. In the first, set in a prison mess hall, he is told that his beloved mother has died, and Cagney slowly builds an astonishing reaction from disbelief through sorrow, grief, and finally, complete hysteria — among the most chilling sequences in movies. At the end of the picture, fatally wounded and trapped by the law on top of a huge globular gas tank, he grins malevolently, laughs, then fires his pistol into the tank itself and, as flames shoot up around him just before the blinding explosions begin, he screams, maniacally happy, “Top of the world, Ma! Top of the world!”
I can say without hyperbole – it kind of doesn’t get any better than that.
I know the “top of the world, Ma” is the more remembered scene – one of those immortal movie moments – but to me, the prison mess hall freak-out is one of the most astonishing (I’ll steal Bogdonavich’s word) sequences I’ve ever seen in a film.
My memory of the movie may be faulty, Sheila.
But I’ve always remembered that scene as flames already flickering around as Cagney attempts to escape from the Law.. only to end up trapped on top of the gas tank.. the Law closing in.. flames around him.. shooting wildly at those closing in on him.. then, with a realisation of the situation he faces.. “I made it Ma!.. Top of the world, Ma!.. Top of the world!”.. and then he shoots at the tank.
Great movie.. great actor too.