This was an innovative film and featured a lot of elements that would become standards in the gangster genre including tommy guns carried in violin cases, terrible shoot-outs, and lots of rum-running rivalry.

21 year old Lew Ayres.

The 'big three' classic sound gangster pictures are of course Little Caesar, The Public Enemy and Scarface, but they were preceded by a stack of gangster efforts that have become mostly forgotten. These proto-mob epics lack the star-power of greats like Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney, talents that brought 'gutter life' vocal skills to the early talkies that overpowered the stilted dialogue of play adaptations and stuffy Hollywood scenarios. Perhaps the closest 'also ran' is the alternately ruthless and sentimental The Doorway to Hell, starring Lew Ayres fresh from his success in Universal's All Quiet on the Western Front.. The movie has most of the requirements to qualify as a top gangster classic. It centers on the twisted personality of a major racketeer, it treats its subject realistically and it even depicts (off screen) the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, less than one year after the actual event. Finally, making The Doorway to Hell a must-see is the appearance, in his second film, of a sixth-billed James Cagney. Cagney's powerful natural delivery overshadows the work of the film's putative star.


e Doorway to Hell really has everything a fan of Warner gangster pictures could want. Ace crime writer Rowland Brown (Quick Millions, Blood Money, Angels with Dirty Faces, Kansas City Confidential) puts snap into the action. The opening scene sees hit man Dwight Frye (excellent) reclaiming his "violin case" from behind the bar of a pool hall, and using it to rub out a snitch. His big dialogue line is, "I'm going to teach a guy a lesson." The gang war is represented by a (pretty unbelievable) street battle that has gangs with clubs going at it while pistols, rifles and machine guns blaze all around.


Little Caesar came to theaters in January 1931 and The Public Enemy followed that April. But before either and coming courtesy of the same studio, Warner Brothers, The Doorway to Hell made a huge hit with theatergoers in October 1930.