Some dawns I die, some I don't

A few years back I bought a four-film set of James Cagney roles. I did a review of City for Conquest quite some time ago, and recently sat down to watch Each Dawn I die when a search of the blog suggested that I've never done a review of it before.

Cagney plays Frank Ross, an intrepid reporter for a big-city newspaper. He's investigating District Attorney Jesse Hanley (Thurston Hall), who is running for governor but corrupt as all get-out, as Frank spots him and aides burning the evidence late one night in an industrial zone. (Why Frank didn't take pictures is beyond me.) The story pisses Hanley off so much that he decides to frame Ross, much the way that the bad guys in North by Northwest made Cary Grant appear drunk.

Of course, in this case, the "drunk driving" causes a crash that kills three kids, so Frank gets sent up the river for a long time, up to 20 years. Frank's colleagues on the newspaper vow to get him freed, but it's not going to be easy. On the way to prison, Frank meets one of his fellow prisoners-to-be, "Hood" Stacey (George Raft), a big-time gangster who's being sent to prison for 199 years. Stacey, being a gangster, has enemies in this prison from the rival gang, and the prison guards don't much care if the gang members want to bump each other off.

Frank makes a friend in Stacey, however, when he trips a guy who was about to stab Stacey. But one of Stacey's rivals gets stabbed to death during the prison's movie night. This, however, gives Stacey and Frank ideas. Stacey plans an escape which will involved going on trial for the murder that he didn't actually commit, something which will require Frank to finger him. In exchange, Stacey, once on the outside, will look for the folks who were working for Hanley to set Frank up.

It doesn't quite work that way, though. Frank, being a reporter, tips off his newspaper to the escape attempt saying something big is going to happen at the trial. The attempt does succeed, but the press coverage pisses Stacey off, so he decides to renege on his part of the bargain. The prison authorities assume Frank was in on it, so when he won't name names, they put him in solitary confinement. And Frank's girlfriend Joyce (Jane Bryan), pissed that Stacey isn't holding up his end of the deal, begs Stacey to reconsider....

Each Dawn I Die is the sort of movie where it's easy to see why it was so popular back in the day. It has the bite typical of the Warner Bros. movies of the 30s, and Cagney is as good as always. The one odd thing I found, however, was George Raft. His character, despite being a gangster sent up for 199 years, seems rather laid back, frankly unnaturally so. For whatever reason, this bugged me the whole movie.

Not that the movie is bad by any means. It's definitely worth a watch. In addition to the box set at Amazon you can also watch it via Prime Video if you can do the streaming thing.