The Doorway to Hell

10/3/2025

With Chicago effectively a lawless city controlled by warring gangsters fighting over their turf and their lucrative prohibition income, opportunistic “Louie” (Lew Ayres) sees an opportunity to centralise things. A meeting, a few machine guns, and some sheer brass neck soon sees him running the racketeers and presiding over an unusually peaceful city. Then he marries his sweetheart “Doris” (Dorothy Matthews) and has something of an epiphany. He wants to hand over the reins to his deputy “Mileaway” (James Cagney) and retire to the panhandle for some well earned rest and recuperation. Without him holding down the truce, things at home start to unravel but can he stay away and enjoy his new life, or will he be unable to resist the magnetic attraction of his old job? I thought Ayres did quite