Each Dawn I Die

This 1939 Warner Bros picture puts two different star formulas in the same cell. The reporter Frank Ross is investigating a corrupt district attorney with an eye on the governor's office; to silence him the DA frames him for manslaughter and Ross goes to prison. Inside he meets Stacey, a long-term inmate. The relationship between James Cagney's wrongly convicted newsman and George Raft's calm, calculating criminal is what the film rests on. The prison sequences are hard by the standards of the day: solitary, a riot and guard violence are all shown directly. What the film ultimately backs is not justice itself but the word two men outside the system give each other. Who it's for: viewers who like classic Warner crime pictures and Cagney. Who it's not for: anyone wanting a complicated argument about justice; the film moves fast and straight.