I recorded this film in September and kept it until I could watch it again, which I did this week. I love the Warner Brothers crime dramas. I was intrigued by this one because Lew Ayres was top-billed. I don't think of him as a gangster. Hearing his name, my first image of him is an Ned Seton in the film Holiday. Based on IMDB comments, many people didn't see Ayres as a gangster way either, especially with James Cagney in the film as Ayres' right hand man. I think Ayres pulled off the part--he could be menacing.
The film opens with a running printing press. I've seen this in several movies. Usually the newspaper displays some important plot point. Here it lists the film's credits. In the first scene Monk asks for his violin case. Of course, it has a gun in it. I thought oh, this old trope. Then I realized it was a new trope because this film was made in 1930 before the Warner Brothers gangster classics: Little Caesar (1931) The Public Enemy (1931) and Scarface..
I like Cagney's threat to another mob member, "If you don't watch your step, you're gonna find a way to treat yourself to a handful of clouds." He means "the kind that comes out of the end of a 38 automatic."
Throughout the film, Cagney is carrying on an affair with Ayre's girl and later wife. Since this is a pre-code film, the affair is treated as a matter of fact with no moralizing. Nor is Ayres' wife played by Dorothy Mathews punished for her indiscretion.
Robert Elliot as the police captain epitomizes the tough cop seen in several films over the years. Again, I had to remind myself that this may have been the first incarnation of such a character in 1930.
I was disappointed when I couldn't find a reference to this film in my book, Warner Brothers Presents. The Doorway to Hell deserves to be remembered.
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