"Each Dawn I Die," a film released by Warner Brothers (who else?) in 1939, is a fast-paced, fast-talking film that includes familiar elements of the prison genre and important pieces that defined future film styles. The movie boasts two of the most engaging faces of the era, James Cagney and George Raft, in leading roles as well as a really fine group of lesser known actors from the period. The film entertains from beginning to end with action and engaging word play. Cagney brings his regular Cagney schick (stiff walk, fast talk, deadly accurate punches), but he also shows some raw emotion that raises the movie from a B-picture to a film that earns its place as one of the best genre films released in Hollywood's best year, 1939.
Cagney stars as Frank Ross, a hard-hitting newspaper man who is framed for a drunk driving rap by a corrupt politician. District attorney Hanley and his "equally disgraceful assistant Grayce" view Cagney's investigative journalism as a major threat to their dirty dealings. Pulling strings that you hope are only so effective in movies, the men have Ross tried, sentenced and incarcerated within the first 10 minutes of the film. On the prison bus, Ross meets and quickly engages in rat-a-tat 30s dialogue with George Raft's character, 'Hood' Stacey, a died-in-the-wool gangster sporting the kind of flippant attitude towards crime that really grinds Ross's gears. The two alpha males naturally start out as adversaries, but soon become allies as they face deadlier enemies than each other inside and out of the prison's walls. For Stacey, he becomes the target of a former lackey from his crew, Limpy Julien (Joe Downing) who vows to make Stacey pay for giving him the limp of his namesake. With his case hopelessly tangled in red tape by the evil lawmakers, Ross's enemies are those keeping him in prison to prevent him from spreading the truth. On the outside his newspaper team, his mother and his girl Joyce, (played little know actress Jane Bryan), are pounding the pavement daily to get Ross help.
After a prisoner is murdered, Stacey reasons that if Ross fingers him as the murderer, it would get Ross a pardon and put Stacey in the right position to escape. For George Raft the plan goes off without a hitch, but Cagney isn't so lucky. The warden and nasty guard believe that he helped Stacey to escape, a suspicion that leads Ross to 6 months in the hole. His time there produces a real change in the character who up until that point still believed that justice would be done. "I'll get out if I hafta kill every screw in the joint!" This exclamation marks the beginning of his literal and figurative descent into darkness. While in the hole, he becomes the most difficult prisoner in the place, and seriously jeopardizes any possibility for parole. Meanwhile, Stacey and Joyce on the outside devise a plan to help Ross get out. But whether Ross will maintain his sanity by then, remains to be seen. The final moments of the film are of an explosive prison riot that brings the film's angsty Marxist undertones their most startling visual representation.
The acting here is really superb. As I mentioned before, Cagney's deeper emotional moments are highly gratifying to watch. When he begs the parole board to release him, head hung low in humble dejection, voice cracked with desperation, your hearts breaks at his sincerity. Together, he and Raft are the perfect duo. Cagney's intense and sharp, Raft is aloof but penetrating.
As great as the chemistry is between Raft and Stacey, scenes that include one or more of the colorful inmates that make up the film's cast are a pleasure to watch. Although some of the characters can be described with just one adjective such as dumb guy or angry guard, the actors are so good that they make the best of the little screen time they share with Cagney or Raft.
The best of them is played by Stanley Ridges. His character is Mueller, the guy that has gone stir crazy and can't take much more time behind bars. Prison films always have this person, the one who goes off on rants and tangents, but Ridges makes the character his own by delivering some of the best lines in the film. The way he describes prison life is deeply moving: "I'd sooner be dead than livin' in this madhouse. Break your back workin' all day, sit in your cell til next morning with nothing to do but stare at the wall, Screws goin' by snoopin,' rats like Limpy. Next thing you know you're stir nuts. Just bidin' your time until you can kill the next creep that comes your way." He speaks these words in a strained, desperate voice that rises in intensity with each phrase. His words slowly grip you and somehow make you a little more grateful that you can turn the knob of your door and exit your room as you please.
But an appreciation of freedom is not what the film is about. Though Ross becomes a free man by the end of the picture, many of the film's lovable characters meet their end in the deadly prison raid. The way the camera stays trained on the faces of the fallen inmates, and all but dehumanizes the throng of intruding guards makes it clear where our sympathies are directed. The movie makes the point that the system simply isn't fair. The scales of justice are weighted. "Each Dawn I Die" is really a precursor to Film Noir, that great genre that made pessimism and the inevitability of perpetual disappointment look damn good. Noir did not really become an identifiable style until the mid 1940s, but our film showcases its most classic features. It's scrutinizing look at society and its failings is one of them. As a character from one of my favorite noir films Detour once said "no matter where you turn fate always sticks a foot out to trip ya." Characters like stacey, Ridges and even Limpy Julian come from the wrong side of the tracks and thus can never climb the ladder to success without rigging it first. Movies like this, where the villains are those in power, turn an accusing spotlight on culture and ask "what are you doing to cause this?"
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