OVP: The Doorway to Hell (1930)

Film: The Doorway to Hell (1930)
Stars: Lew Ayres, Dorothy Mathews, James Cagney, Leon Janney
Director: Archie Mayo
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Story)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Frequently when reviewing older movies you run into an issue that's quite hard to get around that I call "The Stagecoach Paradox."  Stagecoach, a classic John Ford western from 1939, is a wonderfully-constructed film starring John Wayne, Claire Trevor, and Thomas Mitchell that would essentially make all of them major stars, particularly Wayne.  Looking back on the film, though, you realize that you've seen this movie before even if you haven't.  This is because Ford's original film, so beloved in its day, has been ripped off countless times, frequently even by Ford himself.  As a result you develop a respect for it rather than a love for it since you've already had the treat of your first classic western and this is just a retread of that, even if it came first.  This is part of the problem with Archie Mayo's mafia drama The Doorway to Hell-it inspired so many Public Enemies and Scarfaces that were to come (and were improvements on the original format), that while you have deep respect for the innovation, you can't quite love it because you know something coming later will be so much better.

(Spoilers Ahead) Perhaps the central problem that comes out of Doorway to Hell is that it has the wrong man headlining the picture.  Lew Ayres was coming off a leading role in Greta Garbo's The Kiss and had landed the role of his career in All Quiet on the Western Front (which also came out in 1930), so it made sense that when he was loaned to Warner Brothers that he take the lead over a contract player at the studio named James Cagney.  Cagney, of course, would go on to be one of the greatest stars of the 1930's and 40's, and would film one of the most famous scenes in all of cinema the next year in a movie very similar to Doorway to Hell (for those who are wondering what I'm talking about, google Mae Clarke, Public Enemy, and grapefruit and you'll get the gist).

Cagney totally steals the film from Ayres, who is too much of a choir boy and too naive (his girlfriend is cheating on him with Cagney) to be believable as a man that could control a city.  Cagney, on the other hand, has nuance and subtlety in his corner, and plays every scene with the knowledge that people are going to focus on him.  In a film where almost all of the other actors had limited or no careers (leading lady Dorothy Mathews made almost no other films and eventually moved to be a TV producer when stardom never happened), it's Cagney that steals the picture.

This is no fault on the screenplay, though, which is actually pretty strong and occasionally quite good, especially when we see Lew Ayres' Louie return to his haunt, realizing that there's no escaping his past misdeeds, well aware that he can't have his cake and eat it too, no matter how noble his intentions are for his bride.  But Ayres is too broad in the role, even by the acting standards of the day (sound was still really new to actors and many were still reliant on using facial expressions and body language to convey emotion), and Cagney isn't in enough of the film to save it.

It's also worth noting that the side characters, so critical to the film's success, don't have enough differentiation so we don't know whom to actually trust.  One of the neater things about the screenplay is that it leaves certain things unresolved (we don't know precisely what happens to either Dorothy Mathews or James Cagney, for example), but that also means that the deceptive characters are difficult to keep track of, particularly toward the end when we can't tell who is gloating and who is feeling empathy for Louie.  Still, this is that rare film where the acting sucks down the screenplay, which is the finest attribute of the film, which thankfully Oscar was smart enough to notice.

Those are my thoughts on this film-what are yours?  Do you also find yourself wishing Cagney was the lead rather than Ayres?  Do you also find movies frequently suffer from "The Stagecoach Paradox?"  And what's your favorite 1930's gangster film?  Share in the comments!