The Doorway to Hell

This was better than I had expected. Maybe not quite up there with Public Enemy and the original Scarface, but not that far behind.

The acting is pretty good for an early talkie. Cagney is great as usual as the head gangster's top henchman. Lew Ayres acts well as the head guy, "the Napoleon of crime", although he's perhaps a little too cleancut looking for the role.

The story is good, and rather dark. Mobster Louie Ricarno, after uniting all the gangs in Chicago under one organization, tries to quit crime. But things fall apart in his absence, and he's forced to return for purposes of revenge. The ending is nicely grim and while there might be enough of a "crime doesn't pay" moral to keep the censors happy it doesn't rub it in your face. There's some good gangster violence along the way.- a number of well-done hits, and an over- the-top scene that resembles a full-scale battle.

Two other things struck me as memorable: The adulterous relationship between Cagney and his boss' wife. At one point, she takes off her wedding ring, and then they "go somewhere".

The police captain, O'Grady, is a rather ruthless character. He blackmails Cagney into a false confession for a crime he didn't commit, by threatening to tell Ayres about his affair with Ayres's wife! Later, he lets Ayres's rivals bump him off, rather than prosecute him and risk an acquittal. It also is implied that O'Grady's rejection of bribes is more the exception than the rule among police officials.

It pays to watch this movie closely, as there is a lot that is implied and innuendoed.

... 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.

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.

To see this movie on the Big Screen(like my Father,his uncles, and my Grandfathers did)would have been a treat. Well,not in my Dad's instance,because when my Dad saw the film on the Screen, it was shortly after Bogart's death and Cagney was already a long since established star.But still a treat nonetheless. Anyway for the Old oldtimers,they had to have the attitude:"This Cagney guy is gonna be around. Can't wait to see him again." Cagney always made his surroundings crackle with anticipation and uncertainty. You never really knew what was gonna happen. Doorway to Hell took risks. Real life gangsters dared Hollywood to make this movie because it hit close to home, for them. It's an interesting film to watch because of the miscasting. A thing William Wellman took note of during the filming of "Public Enemy", and had Cagney and the Lew Ayres clone "switch roles"...because "this Cagney guy has that gutter quality that this story needs to become effective". A must see movie.Especially for the buffs.

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.