The Doorway to Hell

Louie Ricarno (Lew Ayres) leads a bootlegging gang in Chicago with his right hand man Steve Mileaway (James Cagney). With ruthless charisma, he brings the other gangs under control. It's a time of peace in the crime world. He marries his girlfriend Doris and even supports children's charity. He tries to retire and go straight. Events conspire to pull him back into the muck.

It's James Cagney's second film. If only they knew. Ayres is a pretty boy. He's fine as a leading man but even at this early stage, Cagney has the gangster vibe over many of his fellow actors. If they had a crystal ball, Ayres and Cagney would switch places. This is pre-Code and it has a good amount of violence. It's three years after The Jazz Singer. This early gangster talkie has many elements of the genre's classic tropes. It is one of many early Warner Bros gangster movies which would launch a studio and a genre into the brave new world.

Much has been said about Lew Ayres being miscast in this film, but I don't agree. The notion that a pretty young boy can't be a gangster is belied both by Ayres' performance and by history itself--Pretty Boy Floyd, anyone? (I should add, however, that Jimmy Cagney, in his autobiography, agreed with those who believed Ayres was too pretty to play a convincing gangster!)

This film is so much better than you'd think, and that is due not only to fine performances by Ayres and Cagney (make that, a WONDERFUL performance by Cagney, who really does ignite the screen), but also to impressive direction by Archie Mayo. I confess I usually think of Mayo as a pretty journeyman director, but maybe I've only seen his later work and "talkies" spoiled him. If you were to watch this film without sound, you'd be hyper-aware of the wonderful camera set-ups and editing, particularly during the prison break, when the screen is filled with jump cuts of men's legs running. Of course, without the sound, you'll miss the great period dialogue (a gangland ambush offers Ayres the opportunity to "walk into a handful of clouds").

TCM shows this film from time to time, and you really shouldn't miss it. It's well-written, well-directed, has great performances, and the closing lines (displayed as a printed page of the source story on the screen) are as poignant as anything you'll ever read.

I first wanted to viddy this interesting piece of sinny because it offered a pre-PUBLIC ENEMY look at James Cagney. Imagine my surprise to find out it is also Dwight Frye's first talkie! Yes, the man who would find fame as Renfield in DRACULA and Fritz in FRANKENSTEIN appears in this film too. Billed way at the bottom of the opening credits as simply "gangster", Dwight's character is called "Monk" and is one of the first people we meet in the film. That old cliche of the gangster who carries a tommy-gun in a violin case got started with this film and Dwight is the fellow toting the lethal instrument. When he strolls out of a pool room with his violin case under his arm he offhandedly comments "I'm gonna teach a guy a lesson." with a sardonic smile on his face. The lines "Take a guy for a ride" and "Put a guy on the spot" originated with this film too. Lew Ayers, fresh from ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT is the real hero, or should I say anti-hero, of the movie and Cagney exhibits the screen personality that aimed him directly at the bullseye of Hollywood stardom but being a lifelong fan of character actors, I now like this film for Dwight Frye's brief, but memorable, appearance.

This pre-Code gangster movie is interesting primarily because of James Cagney, who is in a supporting role, that of a gangster's right-hand man. His boss is played somewhat improbably by 21- year-old Lew Ayres, who is hard to believe as he threatens rival gang members to fall in line under his authority. However, fall in line they do, that is, until Ayres decides he's had enough and decides to retire. (Yes, the pretty boy baby-face had had enough of the game, when it looks like he hasn't started shaving) When he's gone, all hell breaks loose for reasons we can't really fathom, prompting them to attempt to reel him back in by kidnapping his kid brother, who is away at a military school.

Ayres is one of the casting issues; the other is the policeman played by Robert Elliott, who is far too lethargic as he delivers his lines. The script is actually pretty good, and there are some lines that are wry and just perfect for the genre and time period. The ending is drawn out, however, and it's too bad the story surrounding the love interest (played well by Dorothy Matthews) who marries Ayres but secretly loves Cagney isn't expanded on, though the scene where she coyly slips off her wedding ring to encourage him is nice. The movie hits you over the head with an anti-crime message, but as you think about the actions of the police officer, coercing statements and selectively deciding who to protect, you have to wonder how effective this message was. Anyway, the net of all of this is a reasonably entertaining movie, but nothing to write home about.

This was only Cagney's 2nd movie, just before a string of movies the following year which would cement him as a star, most notably, The Public Enemy, and he's such a natural with great screen presence. As a footnote, I found it ironic that while Ayres in the movie lauds Napoleon, his brother's military training, and war in general, Ayres in real life was a conscientious objector during WWII, making him very unpopular at the time, though he served with honor in the medical corps instead.

... even though many people complain that the role should have gone to Cagney. Ayres' baby-faced good looks and polished exterior were supposed to clash with the reality of the gangster that he was - that is part of the whole point of the film.

Ayres plays Louie Ricarno, a gangster who has decided to take the warring gangs of the city and run them like departments of a corporation of which he, of course, is president. In spite of some beefing by the other gangsters at first, in the long run this ends the in-fighting and all the gangsters make more money in the bootleg booze business and like the arrangement. Ricarno makes more money than any of them and this enables him to marry his dream-girl, retire, and live the life of a gentleman in Florida. At something like the tender age of 25 he is even writing his memoirs. However, he has two problems. First, you can take the girl out of the speak-easy (his wife) but you can't take the speak-easy out of the girl. Secondly, once Louie is retired, the same old in-fighting starts up again among the gangsters he left behind and they yearn for Louie to return and restore order. When he refuses, a couple of the gangsters cook up a plan to force him to return that goes horribly wrong and ends up killing someone close to Louie. Full of vengeance, Louie does return home, but not to restore order.

Cagney here has a minor role as right hand man to Louie and one-time boyfriend of Louie's now bored wife Doris. He's perfect in the role since his openly wise-guy exterior is in sharp contrast to Ayres' gee-whiz personna, in spite of the fact that they are equally violent.

Louie is a sympathetic character in many ways. He isn't someone who just picked crime as a career. Instead he grew up in poverty, lost his parents at a young age, lost two siblings to typhoid from bad milk, and just doesn't know any other way to live than dog eat dog. This doesn't excuse what he does, but it is something of an explanation. In this sense this film is ahead of its time in complexity. Also interesting is Louie's almost-friendship with Captain Pat O'Grady, the cop that is determined to get Louie and his gang off the street once and for all.