White Heat Quotes
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Source: White Heat
Speaker: Cody Jarrett
Made it, Ma! Top of the world!
Context
This line is spoken by Cody Jarrett, played by James Cagney, in the film White Heat, directed by Raoul Walsh (1949).
Cody Jarrett is a criminal. He's either crazy or stupid, because at the end of the film, he hides on top of a gas tank. Not a good place to be when bullets zing back and forth.
Knowing he's cornered, Cody zings his own gas tank in order to go out in a literal blaze of glory. As the gas tank explodes, he shouts, "Made it, Ma! Top of the world!" And then he is blown right off the top of the world.
Where you've heard it
You hear this when someone feels like they've accomplished something. Hopefully they don't have guns pointed at them.
Bart Simpson misquotes this in the episode "The Telltale Head."
Pretentious Factor
If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.
Not exceptionally pretentious, but beware: when you're on top of the world, the only direction you can go is down.