LeonLouisRicci Cagney and Raft are Stuck Inside the "Big House" with a Sadistic Guard and Solitary Confinement chained to the door and only allowed Bread and Water at Noon, not allowed to Talk, constantly folding Their arms, forced to Salute, and the Beat Goes On.Pulling Few Punches, Warner Brothers once again Unreels Real-Life Social Problems for Everyone to See and did it so well. It was the Studio's Forte and are Remembered Fondly as the Movie Company with a Conscience.One of Their Biggest Stars, James Cagney is Teamed Up with a WB Newcomer, George Raft, and Cagney allowed Raft a Meaty Part and the Actor makes the most of it. In Fact, it is one of the Best Performances of His Long Career. Not Known for His Acting Ability (more of a caricature or presence than a Thespian) Raft is Fine in this one.The Story is Stretched to the Limit of Believability at Times and is the Weakest Element in this Prison Pic. A Strong Supporting Cast and a Hard-Hitting Look Inside the "Grey-Bar Hotel" make this a Favorite among Fans of the Type.The Ending is also very Strong as the National Guard shows up and the Bullets Start Flying, Grenades are Launched, and Gas is Disbursed. Overall, Worth a Watch for Cagney Fans and to See Raft at His Best. But the Story is too Contrived and Convoluted and it makes this one Less than the Best of Warner Brothers, Cagney, and Prison Pictures from the Decade.

Bill Slocum This solid Jimmy Cagney tough-guy film offers a striking twist: Cagney's not its most interesting player, letting co-star George Raft all-but run away with the picture.As reporter Frank Ross, Cagney uncovers scandal in high places and is punished by being framed for a fatal drunk-driving accident. That lands him in the Big House, where he meets gangster "Hood" Stacey (Raft) and finds himself running afoul of a nasty prison system while stubbornly insisting on his innocence.Ross is the kind of part Cagney played often and well, not a bad guy but tough when cornered. Cagney's intensity electrifies several key scenes. So I sense he knew what he was doing when he let Raft dominate their scenes together, knowing it would make a better film as well as offer a chance to shine to his friend and new Warners colleague. Raft certainly makes the most of it.Totally cool but never cold, Raft has a great opening scene with Cagney where he asks the reporter: "How tough are you, babe?" When Ross responds by taking a swing at him, Stacey seems almost amused. Even before that, Raft gets off the first of many great lines, this about reporters, "smart guys that are always writing about 'crooks are yellow' and 'crime don't pay.' The DA don't like that because he knows better."Raft's performance, and his chemistry with Cagney as the film goes on and their characters forge an unlikely friendship, is so winning I feel bad not liking this film more than I do. "Each Dawn I Die" is a fast- paced character study of men living under pressure and behind bars which manages to unobtrusively weave serious social concerns into a suspenseful crime story. Still, it's almost too efficient in the way it is constructed, with archetype characters (the snitch, the crazy, the good-natured ox, the sadistic guard) and clichéd dialogue abounding. It seems everyone in this film but Cagney calls someone else "a dirty rat" at some point. (Cagney himself never uses the famous phrase, but does get called "a dirty little rat," which must have stung.)The secondary performances aren't anything to write home about, even with some recognizably excellent Warner players in several roles. But they make an impression in their hammy way, and with Raft and Cagney in the lead roles, it's hard to complain. Cagney's big moments include a breakdown in front of the parole board and tearing up when his mother visits with a home-cooked meal. Raft eschews histrionics, exuding a quiet, almost smug authority, his limpid, beady eyes glowering in anger only in brief, key moments. We are encouraged to like Stacey, but know he means business.Raft also does a great job selling the film's big open question: Why would Stacey go so far helping a reporter who openly disapproves of his livelihood? "You're the only guy I ever met who gave me a break and didn't put the bee on me for dough," is how Stacey answers that, and with Raft delivering the line so naturally, you have to buy it.Prior to this film, I saw Raft in "Some Like It Hot" and the original "Scarface," but never thought him as good a performer, or even in the same league as, the big three crime-movie stars of his time: Cagney, Bogart, and Edward G. But by George, I need to rethink that one! He's not only believable, but a grace note in what otherwise is a heavy- handed, serious film. He also adds a layer of moral ambiguity to a film that asks us to distrust authority and root for the bad guys.Director William Keighley gets you to care about the characters and the story, and works things up to a big finish involving a violent prison break. It still packs a punch. The rest of the film isn't quite at that level, especially a rather draggy middle section, but "Each Dawn I Die" is never dull, and Keighley's emphasis on his two leads pays out handsomely by the climax.Cagney fans will enjoy "Each Dawn I Die" for the chance to see their man in another high-energy performance, but I suspect many will walk away more impressed with Raft, and wishing the two stars had had more chances to ply their trade together.

kapelusznik18 ***SPOILERS*** Brutal 1930''s prison movie with framed reporter Frank Ross, James Cagney, sent up the river for a crime he didn't commit when he was getting too close to expose D.A Jesse Hanley's, Thurston Hall, dealings with and payoffs from the mob. Given a 1 to 20 year sentence for a phony DUI charge that killed 3 people Ross is determined to prove his innocence by exposing the man who framed him D.A Hanley. To rub salt into a wound in was in fact Hanley who prosecuted him at his trial. It's when Ross gets friendly with lifer Hood Stacy, George Raft, the two concoct a perfect plan for escape. Willing to spend a month in the "Hole",solitary confinement, so he can stand trial Stacey has Ross rat him out as the person who did in stoolie Limpy Julien, Joe Downing. It was Limpy who had previously tried to knife him which Ross prevented or tripped him up him from doing. For doing that Stacey promises that he, with his outside mob connections, will find out who framed him and get him freed from prison. It's while he's to stand trial that Stacey plans with the help of his hoodlum friends to make his escape.Everything goes smoothly until at his trial, with Ross as a witness against him, that Stacy makes his escape jumping out of a three floor window and into a getaway car. But in Stacey feeling that Ross betrayed by tipping off his friends at the paper he worked for to be there to get the big scoop that could have jeopardized his escape plan. Now feeling that he owes Ross nothing, in finding out who framed him, Stacey goes on his merry way as Ross, who's suspected in setting up Stacey's escape, is left hanging.***SPOILERS*** It's Ross' girlfriend and fellow reporter Jane Bryan, Joyce Conover, who gets Stacey to change his mind about Ross and thus now plans to give himself up and get a chance , while behind bars, to set things right or kiss and make up between him and Ross. This soon leads to a prison brake where almost the entire prison population ends up getting gunned down by the police and national guard that finally has a fatally wounded Stacey get the person who framed Ross a hood named Carlisle, Alan Baxter. It's Carlisle who just happened to be one of the inmates in the prison! I guess former D.A and now Governor Hanley couldn't or wouldn't give him a pardon. With his job in forcing Carlisle to confess to the prison warden Armstrong, George Bancroft, who was being held hostage Stacey ended his good deed by proving Ross innocent and ends up going down for the count in a blaze of police and national guard bullets.P.S Believe it or not "Each Dawn I Die" just happened to be Soviet Dictator Joseph "Uncle Joe" Stalin's favorite movie. Stalin must have enjoyed it so much because it reminded him of the prison or gulag system that he had set up in the Soviet Union that he loved so much.

ferbs54 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.