Back Door to Heaven

This is a very, very sentimental B-movie--one that tries hard to tug at the heart. It begins many years earlier. There is a beloved school teacher (Aline MacMahon) and her class. One of the boys is a nice kid, but also has had numerous run-ins with the law--and as a result, he's sent to reform school. Years pass and the boy gets in trouble again and again. Now an adult with an extensive criminal history (Wallace Ford), he's been released from prison. While a criminal at heart, he still has a soft spot for this teacher and it's hard to see whether he'll go straight or return to a life of evil.

The film features a few other well-known actors in addition to those I already mentioned. Stu Erwin, oddly, is cast as a criminal associate of Ford--and it's odd, as neither seems cast well in the film since they both tended to play nice, easy-going sorts of guy in their other films. Additionally, Van Heflin plays a defense attorney in one of his earliest roles--and boy does he look young! Overall, the film is enjoyable but very high on schmaltz--a little too much if you ask me. It tries very, very hard by laying on a lot of sentiment and this will probably rub some wrong. But, despite this, the actors seem to try their best and the film is a decent time-passer. Not bad, but certainly not great. Dbburroughs certainly seemed to hate it and I can see why, though perhaps I am a tad more charitably disposed to this sort of overt sentimentality.