***/**** Image A- Sound A- Extras B-
starring James Cagney, George Raft, Jane Bryan, George Bancroft
screenplay by Norman Reilly Raine and Warren Duff, based on the novel by Jerome Odlum
directed by William Keighley
by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Ever the superficially civic-minded studio, Warners saw fit to release this lovely prison-reform drama in the banner year of 1939. It holds up remarkably well: lacking much of the florid speechifying that makes watching 'classic' Hollywood inadvertently risible, it's taut, tight, and unpretentious for most of the way. James Cagney once again delivers as journalist Frank Ross, whose framing for manslaughter (long story) sends him up the river to Hell. The actor is constantly on the edge of tearing someone's throat out with his teeth, a fitting restraint for a film about the pent-up horror of living in stir. Though they inevitably break out the thesis statements for a rather unconvincing finale, Each Dawn I Die is solid entertainment until that point and in spite of its higher instincts.
The first half-hour is best: there, Each Dawn I Die is only trying to introduce you to the circumstances with which it will eventually build its case. Thus Ross is introduced spying on the goons of a crooked politician, and it's his reporting of a burning of records that drives the public official to the aforementioned framing. It's mostly curt words and deathless '30s slang as our hero is tossed in the Rocky Point Penitentiary, where the screws are heartless and the Hole is a place to get lost in for months at a time. Wisely, the film doesn't put arrows around the inhuman conditions, letting it all come out in staccato bursts of brutal verbiage instead. And it doesn't linger over Ross's meeting with Hood Stacey (George Raft), a man done in for 199 years and perhaps aware of the fact that the reporter is innocent. Mainly, the movie's slapping you with men trying hard not to be pushed past their breaking point, which proves electrifying to watch.
Though the last two-thirds aren't quite up to that level, they're still pretty lively. A fairly convoluted bit of business involving a shiv and a dead prisoner results in a pact between Ross and Stacey: if the former will accuse the latter of the crime, the latter will escape and find out who fingered our martyred protagonist. That escape, of course, is a highly improbable courtroom window-drop that'll you be laughing with and at simultaneously. Ross is figured to be an accessory, and shortly thereafter wages a war of misbehaviour, refusing to knuckle under to the brutal prison regime. Things degenerate as the inmates decide to contrive a riot that, under the Production Code, is completely justified yet doomed to failure from the beginning.
There are discrepancies. The movie sags whenever Ross's girlfriend Joyce (Jane Bryan) shows up for moral support and exposition–she's simply too much of a limp noodle for Cagney to logically want anything to do with her. Similarly, George Bancroft's kindly Warden doesn't jive with the monstrous prison he's running. (Clearly, it's a sop to the Hays Office and its obsession with proper authority.) But William Keighley's direction is swift and punchy beyond what his limited reputation would suggest, while the Warren Duff/Norman Reilly Raine screenplay is loaded with the zingers and ugly male behaviour we've come to expect from a Cagney vehicle. Despite its shortcomings, Each Dawn I Die is big fun.
Warner shows the film respect with a high-quality, blemish-free DVD transfer in its original fullscreen aspect ratio. Although the image is perhaps a shade too soft, it's consistently a bright, clear, and undistracting viewing experience. Similarly, the Dolby 1.0 mono compensates for some harshness with fullness and a general lack of hiss. Another "Warner Night at the Movies" title, Each Dawn I Die comes loaded with extras that break down as follows:
Wings of the Navy Theatrical Trailer (3 mins.)
The George Brent vehicle puts the actors in the backseat with the Navy planes in the front; looks like the trailer is the best thing about a threadbare plot.
Newsreel (1 min.)
Footage of the "mystery war" between Japan and Russia in Mongolia, with the Russians being routed and the resulting POWs getting their heads shaved.
A Day at Santa Anita (17 mins.)
A deeply weird short subject in which a little girl has the power to make a racehorse run fast. The film itself segues from family melodrama to comedy to musical in awkward and hackneyed ways. Notable for cameos by various Warner stars–such as Bette Davis and Edward G. Robinson–as race fans.
Detouring America (8 mins.)
A not-terribly-witty cartoon that burlesques the sanctity of America's great attractions. Black, Indian, and even Eskimo stereotypes ensue (there's a disclaimer), but the worst of it is that the punchlines are obvious and unfunny.
Other extras:
Feature Commentary with Haden Guest
Scholar Haden Guest takes us through Each Dawn I Die with a combination of insight and obviousness. A few of his cited visual cues (such as the contrast between Cagney and Raft on their train ride to prison) prove self-evident, but Guest is excellent at describing the film's melding of the gangster, prison, and newspaper genres and discussing the various personnel's iconographies.
"Stool Pigeons and Pine Overcoats: The Language of Gangster Films" (20 mins.)
A variety of experts, as well as celebrities like Robert Evans, Frank Miller, Theresa Russell, and Larry Cohen, hammer home one not terribly brilliant point: dig that crazy gangster talk! Things degenerate into My Favourite Thing About Gangsters Is… early on.
"Breakdowns of 1939" (14 mins.)
As if responding to the documentary, here's a 1939 blooper reel with your favourite Warner stars saying "balls" and "bitch" and "goddamnit!" Initially fascinating, it eventually wears out its welcome like every other blooper reel, but has repeated footage of Porky Pig nearly saying "Son of a…"
Bonus Cartoon: Each Dawn I Crow (7 mins.)
Presumably, this Friz Freleng effort is included because of the pun on the feature title, but it has little else in common. A rooster tries to impede Elmer Fudd from having him for dinner; rendered with Freleng's relative restraint, it only mildly registers.
Lux Radio Radio Theater (3/22/1943) with George Raft and Franchot Tone (57 mins.)
Raft's character dominates this version, with Tone in the Cagney role; it was a wise manoeuvre, as Tone is a complete nonentity next to the charismatic Raft. Otherwise, a condensed and less dynamic production–although host Cecil B. DeMille has a great anecdote about Lux soap in his introduction.
Also on board: the trailer. Available individually or as part of Warner's "Tough Guys Collection".
92 minutes; NR; 1.33:1; English DD 1.0; CC; English, French, Spanish subtitles; DVD-9; Region One; Warner
