To my way of thinking it too much resembles the films of the 30s gangster cycle, and so is not a true noir.
if you are gonna put White Heat in the noir category, why not all the other gangster films like The Public Enemy, Little Caesar, et. al.? (All that really distinguishes White Heat is that it was released during the Noir time period, which I guess officially (or as "officially" as the unofficial world of noir can get) began with The Maltese Falcon in 1941.
This is the crux of the matter. Although not everyone agrees that TMF kicks off the cycle, it can't have begun much before it (that is, unless you count the 30s gangster pictures, which no one does). Interestingly, the end of the cycle is most open to dispute. Noir, if it can be said to have existed at all, clearly migrated to TV in the 50s, and thrived there (in Perry Mason, The Fugitive, et. al.) even after it was no longer viable in film. The coming of color, and eliminaiton of b&w shows in prime time by 1966, doomed noir.
I guess that the color ones that were released during the B/W-era are called Color Noirs (eg. Niagara (1953), Slightly Scarlet (1956)). And those released after B/W was finished are called Neo Noirs [eg. The Long Goodbye (1973); Body Heat (1981), The Last Seduction (1994)].
White Heat 5/5 White Heat was shot by director Walsh's frequent collaborator Sidney Hickox, a highly regarded Warner cinematographer, who also shot To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep for Howard Hawks. Hickox's gritty, realistic style is beautifully represented on Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded picture, for which the source material is in pristine shape. The detail is exceptional, the blacks are deep and solid, the contrast is excellent and the finely delineated shades of gray give the image substance and depth. The film's grain pattern is fine and natural-looking, and Warner has used a BD-50 for this 113-minute film (the longest of the four included in the Ultimate Gangsters Collection: Classics box set), which allows for an average bitrate of 28.97 Mbps. This is a first-rate presentation of one of the glories of Warner's catalog.
Blu-ray.com gives top marks for the image on the new release. Ordered!
9/10. I would have gladly made without Cagney self-explanation scene with O'Brien.