The Doorway to Hell
“The picture Gangland defied Hollywood to make!”
About The Doorway to Hell
Chicago papers call Louie Ricarno the Napoleon of the underworld after he forces the gangs into one protection racket. He marries Doris, leaves the city for Florida, and hands the streets to his friend Mileaway, who is already Doris's lover. Rivals try to snatch Louie's schoolboy brother Jackie to drag the boss back; the boy runs and a truck kills him. Louie returns, settles with the men he blames, and lands in jail. A breakout his enemies arranged ends when he straightens his tie and walks into machine-gun fire.
Cast & crew
More about The Doorway to Hell
Archie Mayo directed. George Rosener adapted Rowland Brown's story A Handful of Clouds. Darryl F. Zanuck produced.
Themes
Background
The story sits in a Chicago where one young boss sells peace to every gang and keeps a brother in a military school out of town.
In film history
Cagney's Mileaway is the role just before The Public Enemy (1931).
Making
Louie finishes a memoir in Florida whose last line says a gangster's life is over and a man's life begins. The telegram about Jackie arrives before a publisher can read it.
Reviews
The New York Times called the picture "plausible and cruel" and wrote that Lew Ayres, "perhaps too much the clean-cut young college boy" for the rackets, "plays excellently."
Music
Ernö Rapée is credited with the music.
Preservation
A circulating print is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- James Cagney plays Mileaway. It is his second film.
- Lew Ayres is Louie, Dorothy Mathews is Doris, Leon Janney is Jackie, and Robert Elliott is Captain O'Grady.
- Noel Madison plays Rocco, the lieutenant who wants Louie's place. Dwight Frye is one of the gangsters.
- Charles Judels was billed as a florist in scenes that were cut.
- Jackie's school buries him with military honors.
Scenes
- At Jackie's school dinner Louie calls war a grand racket, and the major calls it cruel and profitless.
- A blown truck tire in Florida drops Louie to the grass; he laughs at himself.
- Louie waits for Midget in a dry-cleaner's while truck engines backfire to cover the shots.
- He puts on a lit cigar, looks at a picture of Napoleon, and shuts the door.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (The Doorway to Hell (1930).webm)
Quotes
So this concludes the life of a gangster and begins the life of a man. Finis.
