MartynGryphon When I refer to the 'Big Three' I am of course referring to the holy trinity of early 1930's gangster flicks: Little Caesar, The Public Enemy & Scarface.Firstly, this is NOT a James Cagney movie. It's a Lew Ayres movie in which James Cagney, (In only his second movie), is amongst the great supporting cast and based on this performance it was easy to see the star in the making.Lew Ayres plays Louie Ricarno, a bootlegging gangster determined to get rich or die trying. Cagney plays Mileaway, his right hand man who's character seems to be well named as whenever any of the action takes place in the movie, Cagney seems to be a 'mile away' from it, as it's one of the few Cagney movies made where he doesn't either kill, mame or even hit anyone.After a series of tit-for-tat murders between rival gangs, Ricarno calls a meeting with all his rival bosses and proposes that in return for them declaring him ultimate boss, he will protect their operations from any rival gang who may try to encroach on their areas. One wonders whether Charles 'Lucky' Luciano ever saw this movie and used this element of it's plot as his blueprint for the 'syndicate' which he adopted after the murder of crime boss Salvatore Maranzano a year later.After a period of profitable peace for all involved, Ricarno feels that he's made enough money to quit the rackets for good and go straight. His two main reasons for this life style U turn, is his new wife Doris, (Dorothy Mathews), (who unbeknown to him is having a passionate affair with his best friend Mileaway), and his young Brother Jackie, played brilliantly by Leon Janney. Louie doesn't want Jackie to either follow in his footsteps or even rub shoulders with the ne'r-do-well's he does.It's not long after louie's departure that old gang fueds come to the fore once more and gangland killings escalate. In order to incite Louie back to the city, two gangsters plot to kidnap Jackie only to release him when Louie returns. However, the kidnapping is botched as Jackie, who blessed with intelligence of his brother, smells a rat. In his bid to escape, he is knocked over and killed by a passing truck.On hearing the news, Louie, now driven solely by vengeance on the would be kidnappers, returns to his old turf, but peace & profits are the last thing on his mind, and you half expect him to utter Al Pacino's memorable line "Just when I thought I was out....they pull me back in"Ayres, although brilliant in his role was probably miscast, especially when you had the best movie tough guy in world playing the lead's sidekick. (A mistake they nearly duplicated with The Public Enemy until the producers woke up).One let down of the movie was the rivalry between Ayres and fellow gang boss Rocco (Noel Madison), I feel the bitterness between the two needed to be brought out in the plot a little more. Sadly, because they didn't do this, the movie is robbed of any REAL menacing villain.The Pre-code element was also very risqué and the fact that the affair between Cagney's & Mathews's chaarcters was so obviously sexual, must have had all at the Hays office pulling their hair out.Like in most early talkies, many cast members seem to struggle with adapting to the new medium, such as adopting wild animated body gestures as they would have done in silent pictures and also speaking terribly slowly as they were so often told to do. Luckily both Ayres & Cagney are on hand to show them that you didn't need to speak three words a minute to be understood on film.Doorway to Hell is a great early Warner's gangster movie and worth giving a go.Enjoy!

sol (There are Spoilers) Rarely seen and almost forgotten early gangster film that in fact was the first of the great crime motion pictures of the early 1930's, released before the big three "Little Caesar" "Public Enemy" and "Scarface", that put the "organize" into "organized crime".Getting to the top of the heap of the Chicago Crime Syndicate through murder blackmail and payoffs, to the police politicians and judges,Louie Ricarno decides to get all the city's bootleg gangs united into one big operation with him of course in charge. Hesitant at first the leaders of the crime gangs soon see the genius of Ricarno's master plan in that they now can runs their illegal business's without the fear of being rubbed out by each other.Feeling that there's nothing left for him to conquer, in the world of crime, Louie decides to retire, at the ripe old age of 22,and move to his estate in Forida to live out his life in peace and quite, with his new wife Doris, spending his time playing golf and writing his autobiography. There's also the fact that Louie's kid brother 12 year-old Jackie had been enrolled in the prestigious Fairfield Military Academy. Louie doesn't what Jackie to have anything to do with the kind of persons, gangsters, that he dealt with all his life.It turns out that without Louie in charge the organization that he founded started to fall apart. In no time at all the gangs start to go a each other in an all out gang war ending up in danger of destroying themselves. Wanting to get Louie out of retirement and thus, with him back in charge, save what's still left of the organization two of his former colleagues the Midget and his partner in crime Gimpy try to kidnap little Jackie. The two hoods plan to hold him hostage in order to get Louis back in line. The blotched kidnap attempt only has the kid, in his trying to escape, get himself run down and killed in a tragic traffic accident.With the news of Jackie's death Louie get's back to work as a crime chief and in no time at all blood is split on the streets of Chicago. Louie has his hoods gun Gimpy down and leave his body on the gutter as a warning to the now terrified Midget. That was to show the Midget just what's in store for him or anyone else who messes with either the "Great Louie Ricarno",the self proclaimed "Napoleon of Crime", or those like Little Jackie that he loves and cares about. While Louie is fixated on getting the Midget who's anything but, he stands at 5 foot ten inches and weighs about 280 pounds, his right hand man Steve Mileaway is playing around with Louie's wife Doris behind his back.Eventually having the Midget iced, off camera, Louie becomes the prime suspect in his murder. With Louie being in the clear by providing an air-tight alibi for himself, in The Midget's untimely demise the police headed by the slow talking and barley awake, he looked like that at any moment he'll keel over and fall on his head, Captain Pat O'Grady need someone close to him to finger Louie in The Midget's murder. It's there where the double-crossing and scared of his, Louie's, shadow Steve Mileaway steps in.Capt. O'Grady set Louie up in an elaborate plan, with the help of Louie's "good friend" Mileaway,that has him face and receive ultimate justice not from the police D.A or FBI but from his own kind the mob itself! A street-like Justice that he in fact meted out so many times to others is now what Louie Ricarno is to receive himself!

MartinHafer This is a very early talkie gangster film. Because it was made only a few years after talking pictures debuted, it suffers from a few defects that were related to the technology--such as an over-reliance on long shots--making the film look a bit "stagy". Additionally, background and incidental music in the film is noticeably absent. You really can't blame the filmmakers, as the technology was new and they still had to work out a few kinks, but it does make the film seem pretty dated and creaky. It wasn't until a year later that these two problems were pretty much eliminated in American films and even better gangster films like PUBLIC ENEMY and LITTLE CAESAR debuted.The story itself is very interesting due to its cast. Lew Ayres, who had just made a name for himself in ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, stars as a "nice" and "respectable" mob leader. Only late in the film do we see him unleash a wave of extreme violence. This is actually rather ironic considering that in real life, Ayres was strongly opposed to violence and when drafted in WWII, served as a medic because he was so morally opposed to taking lives! Also, this was only the second film for Jimmy Cagney. Since he wasn't an established star, it's not surprising he plays a supporting role though he already was being cast as a mobster in films.The movie is in some ways a very typical Warner Brothers gangster film, though with one exception. Mob boss Ayres is a supposedly smart man and retires from the mob when he's still very young and able to enjoy the spoils of his work. But, when the gangs start fighting among themselves, he is reluctantly pulled back into the picture--leading to a rather dramatic conclusion. Interestingly, although the movie was pretty violent in spots and probably featured more gunfire than any film of the 30s, some of the key violent scenes are not seen but are only heard. An interesting idea no doubt spurred on by the new sound technology.

reptilicus 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.