You'll Never Take Me Alive!

Did the end of the manhunt leave you wanting? Is spectacle, not suicide, what you crave? Then here, for your VCR, are some fictional blazes of glory that put the news channels to shame. James Cagney's classic White Heat might just be the king of them all. Said to be based on Arthur "Doc" Barker and his "Ma," Cagney's mama's boy Cody Jarrett went out, back in 1949, like no one before or since. One of the first strictly setting-driven action movie finales (think of the two Terminators and their convenient ending locales), and also the hardest-boiled. Absolutely required for anyone who thinks "you dirty rat" is the only thing Cagney ever said. . . COMPETITION: Scarface. A balcony always adds something. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Combined slo-mo and music long before Bruckheimer and Simpson. Throw in Bonnie and Clyde and Thelma and Louise, but that last one's strictly for the ladies. Another thing about these movies: the cops are for the most part quite intelligent.