Each Dawn I Die **** (1939, James Cagney, George Raft, Jane Bryan) – Classic Movie Review 9,245

Warner Bros’ typically punchy 1939 film noir crime melodrama Each Dawn I Die stars James Cagney as a reporter framed by a corrupt DA and jailed for manslaughter. He is uniquely paired with George Raft as a fellow jail inmate. 

Director William Keighley’s typically punchy 1939 Warner Bros black and white film noir crime melodrama Each Dawn I Die [Killer Meets Killer] stars James Cagney as Frank Ross, the innocent crusading newspaperman sentenced to a maximum of 20 years in jail after he is set up by a corrupt district attorney for the manslaughter road deaths of three children after trying to probe a corruption case.

In prison, Ross forms a helpful bond with co-inmate ‘Hood’ Stacey (George Raft), who is on a 199-year stretch falsely accused of fatally stabbing a stool pigeon, while outside jail Ross’s girlfriend Joyce (Jane Bryan) and news colleagues try to get him freed by finding out the truth.

The gaps in Jerome Odlum’s not always credible and often used yarn from his 1938 novel Each Dawn I Die, and Norman Reilly Raine and Warren Duff’s screenplay are filled by an attractively reined-in performance from Cagney, who finds an ideal partner in Raft as his cellmate.

Director Keighley keeps a beady eye both on the actors and the atmosphere as well as the action. However, a slight downside is that Bryan is stuck with the uninteresting love interest. Though she is one of only three women in the whole cast, no one’s heart seems to be in the role. The film is much more interested in the gay subtext relationship of the two prison inmates, and this forms the heart of the film.

Also in the cast are George Bancroft, Maxie Rosenbloom, Stanley Ridges, Victor Jory, Thurston Hall, John Wray, Edward Pawley, Willard Robertson, Emma Dunn, Paul Hurst, Louis Jean Heydt, Joe Downing, James Flavin, John Harron, Al Hill, Stuart Holmes, Selmer Jackson, Robert Holmans, Paul Panzer, Emmett Vogan, Leo White, Maris Wrixon and Jack Wise.

Each Dawn I Die was filmed in April 1939 at Sing Sing Penitentiary, 354 Hunter Street, Ossining, New York, and in the studio at Warner Brothers Burbank Studios, Burbank, California.

It runs 92 minutes.

It was released on 22 July 1939.

It is the stars’ only movie together as leads, though Raft makes an unbilled appearance in the 1932 film Taxi! in which he wins a dance contest against Cagney and they fight. Raft also appears in Cagney’s boxing film Winner Take All (1932) in a flashback sequence from Raft’s 1929 film debut Queen of the Night Clubs.

When Jerome Odlum’s novel was published in 1938, Warner Bros bought the film rights and announced it as a vehicle for James Cagney to play the gangster. When George Raft signed on, he swapped roles to play the gangster while Cagney played the reporter.

It was one of Warner Bros’ most popular films of 1939, costing $735,000 and earning $1,570,000 globally, prompting them to offer Raft a long-term contract.

American writer Jerome Odlum (August 6, 1905 – March 2, 1954) served a term in prison for forgery, and later became a reporter and then managing editor of The Minneapolis News. After he published the novel Each Dawn I Die in 1938 and it was adapted to the film in 1939, Odlum became a screenwriter and was under contract to Paramount at $2,500 per month in 1939. He provided the ‘idea’ for Warner Bros’ very similar film I Was Framed (1942), in which a reporter is framed by corrupt officials and convicted for manslaughter. The premise is identical to the one in Each Dawn I Die with the same car crash and dialogue to follow, and in the courtroom.

Jerome Odlum’s 1939 novel Dust Be My Destiny was filmed in 1939 as Dust Be My Destiny starring John Garfield as a man who gets into trouble after being sentenced to a work farm. His 1941 novel Nine Lives Are Not Enough was filmed in 1941 as Nine Lives Are Not Enough starring Ronald Reagan as a reporter trying to solve a series of boarding house murders.

 © Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 9,245

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