Released in the summer of 1939, near the tail end of a decade's worth of hugely popular and influential gangster films from Warner Brothers, the studio's "Each Dawn I Die" is perhaps best remembered today for one reason: It is the only film to feature James Cagney and George Raft as costars. Raft HAD appeared in cameo parts in the 1932 Cagney films "Taxi!" and "Winner Take All," but those roles were nothing compared to the part he enjoyed in "Each Dawn I Die," in which he gets to completely dominate the usually irrepressible Cagney, and even emerge as the hero of the film. Rapidly paced and ultimately fairly moving, the film packs quite a bit of action and story into its 92 minutes, did justifiably great business at the box office, and remains yet another gem from "Hollywood's greatest year."
In the film, Cagney plays an investigative newspaper reporter named Frank Ross. After writing a story about the town's crooked D.A., Ross is knocked out by thugs, splashed with booze, and set behind the wheel of a moving car. Three people are killed in the resultant smash-up, and Ross, effectively framed, is sent to the Rocky Point Penitentiary, doing "one to 20 years" for vehicular manslaughter. In the prison, he is assigned to hard labor in the twine-making factory, where he encounters "Hood" Stacey (Raft), a lifer with whom he bonds. To make a long story short (and "EDID" DOES feature a rather complex plot; this is a prison film with more on its mind than the usual big-house set pieces), Ross actively abets in Stacey's escape from the "Graybar Hotel," so that Stacey might use his underworld connections to prove Ross' innocence. But is there really honor among thieves, and will Ross be released before his imprisonment transforms him for the worse? In an increasingly suspenseful story line (based on the novel by Jerome Odlum), these are the main questions that come to the fore....
Fans of Cagney's cocky, pugnacious tough-guy roles of the 1930s may be a bit surprised at how "EDID" spools out. His Frank Ross character may start out that way, but life at Rocky Point has a way of finding the cracking point of even the sturdiest nuts. Indeed, Cagney's sobbing breakdown before the parole board is simply stunning, and audiences would have to wait a full decade to see Cagney do a similar prison freakout scene of such affecting power (I am referring, of course, to Cody Jarrett going bonkers in the mess hall, in 1949's immortal "White Heat"). Cagney is aces in the film, despite playing the more passive role; his Frank Ross suffers terribly while doing time, and the viewer wonders if he will ever emerge the same man that he was at the film's opening, or become toughened and animalized, as was the case with Paul Muni's James Allen character in the superb Warners film "I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang" (1932). Raft, surprisingly, matches Cagney scene for scene, and I only say "surprisingly" because Raft is apparently held in low esteem, in many quarters, for his thespian chops. But he is just terrific here, and his real-life association with gangsters gives him an air of verisimilitude that easily brings him up to Cagney's level. Cucumber cool, he easily emerges as the film's most admirable and resourceful character (viewers would have to wait a full 20 years to see Raft essay an equally likable gangster role, as Spats Columbo, in "Some Like it Hot"), while the growing admiration and friendship between the two men is very much the heart and soul of this picture. Cagney, a product of NYC's Lower East Side, and Raft, who was raised in NYC's Hell's Kitchen, make a marvelous team in this, their only real pairing. They are hugely abetted by a roster of great supporting actors, including pretty Jane Bryan as Cagney's sweetie; George Bancroft as the ineffectual warden; Maxie Rosenbloom as a fellow convict, who gives the film what little humor it possesses; and the dependably hissable Victor Jory as the crooked assistant D.A. and later, stunningly, the head man at Ross' parole hearing. Director William Keighley, who had worked with Cagney before, on 1935's "'G' Men," and who would go on to work with him three more times (on 1940's "The Fighting 69th" and "Torrid Zone" and 1941's "The Bride Came C.O.D."), fills his frame with constant movement, utilizes effective close-ups, and keeps the action moving at a rapid clip. The dialogue in the film is as rat-a-tat-tat as the rapid-fire machine guns that the National Guard utilizes in the film's (seemingly obligatory) riot sequence, and a repeat viewing may be necessary to fully capture it all (it was for me, anyway). Culminating with an explosive finale in which every character gets pretty much what he deserves (at least, in accordance with the Production Code of the time!), "Each Dawn I Die" is a hugely satisfying affair, and a great success for everyone involved in it.
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