Richard III vs. White Heat

White Heat, a 1949 movie directed by Raoul Walsh is one of the greatest mob movies of all time and draws heavily from the original portrayal of a king mobster, King Richard III, in William Shakespeare's infamous tragedy Richard III.

Parallels can be drawn between many of the characters of each work. First of the main mob boss in White Heat, Cody Jarrett, mirrors Richard III in the tyrannical way he rules and his cutthroat tactics to maintain power. Neither man is opposed to using and then disposing of people, both quickly resorting to killing others when they stand in their way or they have no need for them anymore. Both Richard and Cody even kill their right hand men, Buckingham and Big Ed Somers respectively. These men similarly have mother issues, Cody is a mama's boy whose mom even takes over his position when he is in jail, while Richard is hardened by a mother who opposes him and is appalled by his heinous actions. Finally, each tyrant has a lovely lady, a wife, at his side, although neither of them truly support their man. Both women, Verna Jarrett and Lady Anne have their true loves murdered by the mad men, Big Ed Somers and Edward respectively, but only Anne dies at the hand of her husband while Verna tries to sell him out and luckily survives to tell her tale. In both works, the women of the story are the only ones who can see Richard and Cody for who they truly are, ruthless, power-hungry tyrants, while the other men

Not only are the characters of these two works mirror each other, so does the structure of the stories themselves. Both stories feature the general arc of the tyrant’s rise to power, their prime, and their downfall. White Heat opens when Cody is already in his prime so you do not get to see as much of the building process as you do in Richard III, as you see him methodically plot to gain more power and become king. While in their prime both men are still not content because they are paranoid about those closest to them and are anxious about the possibility of their downfall. When each man falls he falls hard, the conclusion of each tyrant’s reign is marked by his death. In White Heat, Hank Fallon describes Cody’s death, saying that he, “finally got to the top of the world, and it blew up right in his face.” While Cody dies in a blaze of glory, Richard’s death is not as spectacular, he faces Richmond in a fight and loses, thereby losing his life along with the war. Regardless, both men died as a direct result of their poor decisions as rulers, selfish endeavors made in the attempt to satisfy their insatiable greed for power.