Todesangst bei jeder Dämmerung

Although innocent, reporter Frank Ross (James Cagney) is found guilty of murder and is sent to jail. While his friends at the newspaper try to find out who framed him, Frank gets hardened by prison life and his optimism turns into bitterness. He meets fellow-inmate Stacey (George Raft) and they decide to help each other.

Rather than be the good guy ("G Men") or the bad guy ("Public Enemy"), here we have Cagney as an innocent newspaper reporter framed and then sent to prison, where he becomes a little bit hardened. Maybe not quite a bad guy, but not really the good guy, either. It is a nice transformation, and an interesting commentary on prison life.

I am not very familiar with George Raft (I actually know him more from reading Mafia history than from film), but if he is like he is here in other films, I need to see more George Raft.

This was a great film for the Year 1939 with a great cast of veteran film stars. James Cagney, (Frank Ross) plays the role as a newspaper reporter who writes a front page head line involving some politicians running for the governor of a state who have burned all their records of evil doings and this story causes them many problems. The politicians decided to frame Frank and set him up by knocking him out and pouring booze on him and send his car crashing into a town and other people's cars. Frank is sentenced to prison for twenty-years and meets up with a guy named Hood "Stacey" who befriends him and they get along until things happen in the prison. Frank becomes very upset with his prison life and causes all kinds of bad problems for himself and he is sent into solitary confinement for many months. Joyce, (Jane Bryan) is a girl friend and also a reporter for the same newspaper that Frank works with and she tries her best to see what she can do to get him free. There is lots of action for a 1939 film and it deals mostly with the insides of a prison and deals with guards who love to mistreat the prisoners. If you like old film classics and these two great actors from the past, don't miss this one.

The investigative reporter Frank Ross (James Cagney) finds evidence of corruption against a powerful politician Jesse Hanley (Thurston Hall) that is candidate to Governor in the elections. Hanley sends his gangsters to catch Frank to frame him. They knock his head and soak him with whiskey and then they put him fainted in car that hits another and kills the driver and two passengers. Frank can not prove that he is innocent and is sentenced to twenty years of hard labor in Rocky Point Prison.

The newspaper direction tries to find evidence of Frank's innocence while he befriends the gangster Stacey (George Raft) that was sentenced to 199 years. Stacey asks Frank to help him to be accused for a crime that he had not committed since he has planned to escape from the courthouse. In return, he would help to find who has framed him up using his contacts in the underworld. Will Stacey really find the responsible for the frame-up?

"Each Dawn I Die" is and engaging prison movie, despite the unrealistic plot. Stacey spontaneously returning to Rock Point is absolutely unbelievable and destroys the story. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Morte me Persegue" ("The Death Chases me")

Folks, It doesn't get much better than "Each Dawn I Die" with James Cagney and George Raft... This is one of my top-5 all-time gangster / prison films from the golden era of Hollywood film-making...

I thought James Cagney, George Raft, George Bancroft and Jane Bryan were just terrific in this film... I can watch this movie three or four times a year, depending on my mood and state of mind... I never seem to grow tired of this film... Probably never will, either....

I am much more into the tough guy and mobster roles' actors like Cagney, Bogie, Robinson & George Raft made in their peak years in Hollywood... I never was big on Musicals' or Song and Dance films..... The years between 1930 to 1950 are no doubt my favorite years of classic film-making..... "Gangster & Horror" were at their best....

MR.BILL Raleigh

Raft and Cagney, in their only appearance together, doing what they did best. While the plot of this film noir is a little contrived, aren't they all, the pleasure watching true greats perform is a joy and a pleasure.