Watch The Doorway to Hell For Free

That was an excellent one.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

. . . Warner Bros.' warning to We Americans of the 21st Century about our Deplorable Political Class, as dissected in THE DOORWAY TO HELL. Even copper "Pat O'Grady" admits in the end to the doomed "Louie" that the police of America's then incipient Fat Cat State are as much of a "public menace" as the kid-killing gangs led by "Rocco" and "Midget." As always, Warner's team of alarm-sounding prognosticators serves as Our Extreme Early Warning System, uncannily accurate in throwing Louie's kid brother "Jackie" under the truck to not only advance the plot in THE DOORWAY TO HELL, but also to forecast the plot of Red Commie KGB Chief Vlad "The Mad Russian" Putin's stooges in his Fifth Columnist Fellow-Traveling Pedophiliac Repug Party (aka, The GOOPERS) of actually--in this Our Real Life--throwing 10 MILLION of the USA's Poor Kids under the proverbial bus by eliminating America's long-standing "CHIP" Health Care Program in December, 2017, so that Putin's White House Sock-Puppet-in-Chief Don Juan Rump can send to U.S. taxpayer funds "saved" by these Repug Kid Killings directly to the Kremlin in the form of gold bars from Fort Knox. That the Demo-Rats twiddle their tails while this and countless other outrages are taking place under their snouts is NOT surprising to viewers watching THE DOORWAY TO HELL slam tight shut behind America. This flick shows that that cursed portal is plenty wide enough for ALL the Fat Cat Washington, DC, Gang Bosses to slop through!

Plot-- A youthful gangster consolidates warring mobs in his city, turning them into a single money-making gang. Successful now, he retires with his wife (Mathews) to a golf course in Florida. But can he stay retired when rivalries again break out.Love those head-hugging cloche hats the women wear. Nothing says 20's flappers quite like that fashion. The movie may be an antique, but for a gangster film what it crucially lacks is needed grit. I'm guessing the boyishly handsome Ayers was cast as head gangster because he's supposed to be somewhat sympathetic in a way that the formidable Cagney, for example, wouldn't. Trouble is Ayers is too soft looking to be credible on the ruthless gangster side. Instead, he found his niche as the wholesome Dr. Kildare in that popular movie series.(Can't help noticing Ayers looks facially like his contemporary John Wayne then making oaters for Lone Star. See if you agree.).Except for Cagney, the supporting cast remains obscure, maybe even for that time. Mathews, the feminine lead, hasn't much to do except cuddle covertly with Cagney. In fact, women scarcely appear at all. As a whole the movie's none too convincing, unlike Public Enemy, a year later. However, the script is pre-Code so the line between cops and robbers is none too clear, while Mathews' infidelity goes unpunished. On the other hand, the pacing lacks needed snap in the slower manner of the 20's. Anyway, it's not hard to see why this gangster epic is not grouped with the classics of the day. But it does have its moments, like that deadly underside of a big truck.

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.

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.