User Reviews

It came as something of a surprise to discover that this atmospheric noir movie was actually made in 1939. The film's Great Depression background is so convincingly realistic not only in the attitudes of the characters but in the very fiber of the movie itself, particularly in the scungy sets created by William Saulter (an art director I'd never heard of before) and the superbly atmospheric photography by that master of masters, Hal Mohr. As the central character, both Jimmy Lydon and Wallace Ford give outstanding performances, while Van Heflin plays a memorable early role as Ford's defense counsel, and director/producer William K. Howard makes his only on-screen appearance as the prosecutor. (Howard was also the author of the original story). For possibly the only time in his 125 credited screen and TV appearances, Stu Erwin plays a thoroughly despicable character. In a scene that occurs off-camera, Erwin (or his accomplice) shoots and kills the owner of a low class eatery during a bungled hold-up and then lets Ford (who wasn't even there during the shooting) share the blame! Maybe producer Howard ran out of money, because we don't actually see any of this action on-screen at all, nor do we hear Erwin's actual court testimony, all of which is a bit of a drawback! Instead, the film hastens into a sentimental school-house scene with Aline MacMahon, who is told that the old school will be demolished. Good riddance, I'd say, but the movie takes the opposite view! Available on an excellent Alpha DVD.

One of the strangest, most awkwardly melodramatic and yet somehow insanely intriguing 1930's crime flicks ever made, beginning with the fact that a skinny Jimmy Lydon, as young harmonica thief Frankie Rogers... who shares a single scene in a classroom with kids that would turn into adult actors playing them later... bares absolutely no resemblance to bulky Wallace Ford, who always seemed as if he'd never been young...

By the time Frankie's an adult, locked up in a prison after... having been locked up as a kid... a few minutes will pass before you realize it's supposed to be the same person... like a new character's introduced that will eventually meet the kid we've been following... Yet now we're in the second act as if the first never happened...

Where Ford's Frankie and two prison buddies are paroled after a rushed montage of life in stir, and wind up casually roaming the countryside, like hobos contentedly going nowhere until, at one point they're eating from plate of food at a small town diner that mysteriously catches on fire...

Then all three wander around, the plates still in their hands and continuing to eat, even when one of the cons, from out of nowhere, suggest they go into a dance hall where he... Bert Frohman as Bert Gatto... winds up crooning in a professional voice backed by a barbershop quartet...

The bizarre journey of BACK DOOR TO HEAVEN isn't only what random stuff occurs, mostly from out of nowhere, slowly, but how the characters act along the way... as if taking a tour through someone else's movie that hasn't figure out who the star is, or the plot...

But there's a kind of theme since young Frankie had a dysfunctional family and, as noted, a classroom of kids who wind up adults at a reunion run by the hometown banker: the younger version's played by future ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST actor William Redfield, and, ironically, the kind of jerk he turns into is the kind of roles Redfield would wind up playing (especially Jack Nicholson's stuffy CUCKOO'S foil Mr. Harding)...

Strange story short, and since every old movie needs a love interest... the girl Frankie knew as a kid is now a singing star... and when their rekindled romance almost begins (despite moon-face beauty Patricia Ellis having zero chemistry with chubby Ford), those once seemingly affable ex-con buddies -- also including a previous Oscar winner Stuart Erwin -- kill a store manager they're robbing, and ALL THREE wind up... get this... on death row...

This deliciously ludicrous play in purgatory ends with Frankie, having easily escaped, turning up at his reunion where the greedy banker's lectured by his old friends and even older teacher and, when Frankie runs in he says a few words about life and love until...

Oh, wait... almost forgot that a young Van Heflin plays one of the grownup kids... who had sung a song in class with the girl... becoming an idealistic lawyer attempting to save Frankie...

And the picture ends with James Cagney lookalike Heflin and the real Cagney's once-cinematic love-interest Anita Magee hearing gunshots... with Frankie's name on each, and... let's just say there's never been a lonelier, emptier, weirder experience than watching BACK DOOR TO HEAVEN, especially if you'd just happened to happen upon it.

A little bit of sentimentality never hurt, and you do expect that in some movies made before 1980. This focuses on a youngster (Jimmy Lyndon) sent to reform school for breaking into a music store prior to his grade school graduation and what happens after he gets out. he ends up in prison (now played by Wallace Ford in his adult years), gets parole, and gets into further trouble. It's not an easy existence, and he didn't have a promising childhood with a drunken father and an exhausted mother. But he did have a caring teacher, Aline MacMahon, who has cared for him from a distance from many years and she is very delighted when he visits her even if he hasn't come out all that well.

It appears at the class that Lyndon/Ford was in was a special class for Ms. MacMahon because she doesn't mention anybody but her students from that class. For the most part outside of Ford, they have done well, so a reunion is set up which leads to a dramatic and unfortunate conclusion. While there certainly are cliches, the film is rather direct so the sentiment is often replaced by a sense of modern reality that went from the turbulent 1920's to the very troubled late thirties. that makes it more of a personal drama.

MacMahon as usual is presented as a character with the biggest heart and if you had a teacher anything like her, it will make you feel sentimental as well. With her sad but caring eyes, you basically see her soul right on the surface. Patricia Ellis plays the now grown young lady who once had a crush on Ford, and she's a bit down on her luck as well, working as a struggling entertainer. Douglas McMullen is the class intellect, smugly showing off his ability to do times tables at the graduation and now head of the bank and the school board which has forcefully retired MacMahon.

Now MacMullen wants to tear down the old school house so he has set up a reunion, basically to show off how far he has advanced. Ford's sentiment towards his old teacher and the school is touching, basically his only happy childhood memory, and his performance is a mixture of sweetness and sour. Smaller roles are filled by such familiar faces as Stuart Erwin (cast against type as an ex-con) and Van Heflin as an attorney. Veteran screen floozy Iris Adrian is also briefly seen as Ellis's roommate.

The script is decent even with its cliches, and the performances sincere, even though they overdo it with the sentimental music. Not one of the greatest films of 1939 (that's too tough of an expectation for any movie that year), but you won't be disappointed completely even if its viewpoint of elementary schools is quite dated. Ellis gets a good chance to tell off MacMullen, a scene reminiscent of Auntie Em telling Miss Gulch off in "The Wizard of Oz". Like "Carousel", common sense will tell you that the ending will be sad, and indeed it is.

Poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks slides into a life of crime and stays there thanks society and the lack of help from some school chums. Overly sweet and teary this is a film that you will either find a pleasant reminder of days gone by or else it will be else it will be a silly yuckfest of the sort of ridiculous super saccharine movies that make you laugh at the earnestness of it all. For me it was the latter which made its 85 minutes a tough slog during which I said "you must be kidding" more times then is allowable by law. Its every cliché you can think of all rolled into one. I found it horribly dated and really not worth the effort I put into it. Then again if you like sickly sweet films, even when they are showing you the dark side this maybe for you.

Played by Jimmy Lydon as a kid and Wallace Ford as an adult, Frankie Rogers the protagonist of Back Door To Heaven has a short and unhappy life and is someone who could never catch a break. I've known people like that one in particular from my past who didn't even have parents for his cognitive existence. He like Rogers could never get a break in life.

I wish I could have given Back Door To Heaven a better rating, the cast is a good one and the performances most sincere. But sadly this film is way too awash in sentimentality and pathos.

From an abusive parental household to assorting with sleazy types young Jimmy Lydon who only wanted to fit in gets sent to reform school and becomes a harden criminal. Nearly all the other kids in Aline McMahon's grade school class seem to have made something of themselves except him as he grows into Wallace Ford a hardened criminal. Eventually he moves inexorably to his appointed fate at the death house which he's determined to cheat.

Note the presence of a young Van Heflin before his success on Broadway in The Philadelphia Story and his Oscar for Johnny Eager. As a grownup he's a lawyer who tries to obtain mercy for Ford for a capital crime. McMahon does well as the beloved schoolteacher.

It's a sad film Back Door To Heaven, but it could have used a lot more work to make it OK.