Each Dawn I Die (1939) – full review!

Directed by William Keighley with a screenplay written by Warren Duff and Norman Reilly Raine (The Life of Emile Zola (1937)) this drama features James Cagney George Raft and Jane Bryan (among others). What begins as a fairly interesting story becomes rather muddled and unbelievable toward its end though it’s definitely NOT formulaic. However there’s no faulting the acting whether it’s Cagney’s intensity Bryan’s commitment or Raft’s tough guy persona.

Cagney is a newspaper writer who upsets the wrong people as he’s trying to expose graft and corruption linked to some local officials (Thurston Hall and Victor Jory). So he’s knocked on the head and put in a runaway automobile with a broken bottle of alcohol. The car runs into another car which turns over and bursts into flames killing its three young occupants. Cagney is therefore wrongly accused and sent to the “big house” for 1-20 years. Bryan plays his girlfriend (Selmer Jackson appears briefly & uncredited as his editor) who works to get him out of prison.

On the way to prison Cagney meets gang leader Raft who has a grudge against another tough on the inside named Limpy (Joe Downing). Max Rosenbloom plays Red one of Raft’s gang who’s also in prison; Clay Clement plays Raft’s lawyer. George Bancroft plays the honest Warden Armstrong perhaps the fourth biggest role in the film; Willard Robertson and John Wray play tough guards who aren’t above prisoner abuse. Stanley Ridges Edward Pawley and Paul Hurst play other convicts.

Cagney looks the other way while Raft knifes Limpy though he later denies doing it. After Bryan visits Cagney in prison and brings his mother (Emma Dunn) Cagney agrees to help Raft escape. When Raft escapes because Cagney had alerted his press friends to be ready for it Cagney ends up having to go to “the hole” where he goes somewhat crazy for the injustice of it all. Because he won’t admit to helping Raft Bryan’s appeal to Raft now on the outside for assistance is heard loud and clear. In an effort to feel like a “square guy” for once like Cagney Raft works to clear the newspaperman which leads to him actually giving himself up to get back into prison in order to locate Polecat (Alan Baxter) a con that had been one of Limpy’s gang. Obviously it’s at this point where the believability of the plot is lost.

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