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I saw this again recently and it reminded me how much I resent that it was ever made.

The reasons are entirely to do with film preservation. When MGM decided to remake the original (and best) version made in 1937 by David Selznick, they not only bought the rights but also the camera negative and all surviving prints, together with the fabulous original score by Alfred Newman and the original orchestral parts.

The studio then destroyed all of the prints and the camera negative, bar one lousy dupe print for reference purposes to allow the scen-for-scene copying of the camera se ups for the remake, and more significantly, to ensure that the 1937 version could not be released anywhere as competition.

As a result, the original film can never be seen again in its gorgeous black and white glory. The surviving dupe (now on DVD) is a pale imitation of the original.

As for the score, it is continually claimed that the 1952 version re-used it.

Well, what actually happened is that Conrad Salinger made his own score as an adaptation of Alfred Newman's original utilising the themes, but the scores are quite different and the orchestration has been souped up to fit the MGM schmaltzy house style of the 1950s. Compare the opening main title music to see what I mean.

Worse still , when MGM destroyed its entire music library in 1970 as a cost cutting exercise (so they could tear down the 4 storey Music Dept building and sell the land) , all of the original score materials for Alfred Newman's ZENDA masterwork were lost.

All of this for a tepid, lacklustre remake that was only made to cash in on the Coronation of Queen Elisabeth II in 1953.

Yes, it is technically competent and the production values are fine, but it cannot hold a candle to the 1937 original.

I am also astonished that nobody has noticed how extensively doubled Granger and Mason are in the final duel. I wonder why this was deemed necessary? Were these actors so out of condition or just poor at fencing? When the camera switches from the doubles in long shot to Mason and Granger in close up, it is preposterous, laughable.

Perhaps it was not as obvious in the cinema?

Anyway, this film (liked by many) is always the cause of much pain for me when I see it on TV and then think what treasures were lost in order to make it.

I took the DVD of this famous film off the shelf the other evening and watched it again after 12 years, to see if it still held up or if I liked it an better. The answer is no. It is a typical well mounted Warner Bros "A" picture, with handsome production values and a good score from Steiner, but it has not worn very well as drama.

Although attempts have been made to open out the original play with exterior scenes in Washington, at the Germam Embassy and also in the grounds of the Farrelly mansion (filmed at the old Busch Gardens) , the whole film is fairly set- bound, betraying its theatrical origins.

Paul Lukas, a good actor if not a great one, repeats his much admired and very earnest Broadway portrayal as a German anti-Fascist and won the Best Actor Oscar, probably because of the times in which this film was shown. He has a few good moments but the performance is competent at best, not grippingly memorable.

Bette Davis is woefully miscast as his wife. She took the role as a favour to Hal Wallis who needed a big name on the posters to ensure box office returns would justify the expense (the rights to the play had cost Jack Warner a whopping $150,000)

She does her best to underplay and suppress her usual performance tricks, not entirely successfully (Interestingly, she does not smoke - along with DECEPTION, this is one of her few contemporary films where she does not),.

But she is far too mannered and theatrical for the part, which was built up for her and expanded from the play. It is a pity that the great Mady Christians (who played the role on Broadway) was not asked to reprise her role.

More pleasure is to be found in the supportng roles - especially Lucile Watson as the matriarch (also reprising her stage performance) and the superb English actor Henry Daniell as an icily cynical German Baron. Beulah Bondi is totally wasted as a French housekeeper.

Much has been made by others reviewing this film on IMDB, of how it compares to Casablanca (released the same year) which is far superior in every respect.

Comparisons are not really that relevant except that, while almost every line of dialogue in Casablanca is remembered and quoted, especially Humphrey Bogart's 'hill of beans' speech, not one line of Ms Hellmann's wordy, pompous screenplay is recalled today.

It is a very wordy script indeed and there are many longeurs in the first half. Moreover, the world in which the Farrrelly's live seems almost like a Hollywood fantasy now, with a grand palladian mansion that would not look out of place in GONE WITH THE WIND, and a large staff of black servants all tugging their forelocks and saying 'Yes'm' at every opportunity. The only ingredient missing in all this is the great Hattie MacDaniel, who was under contact to Warners then and would surely have injected some much needed humour to the proceedings.

At one point, the Nazi-sympathising Rumanian Count de Brancovis (George Coulouris) says to Kurt Muller (Lukas) that he cannot place his accent or from which part of Germany he comes. I am not surprised. Lukas was not German but Hungarian, born in Budapest. He was also Jewish, though no mention of his racial origins occur in the script.

This film seems much longer than its 114 minutes running time, and I doubt it will get any better with the passing of time.

The adverts announced at the time:"CAGNEY MEETS A RAFT OF TROUBLE IN 'EACH DAWN I DIE' " And indeed he does.

If you can forget aboout the plot holes and improbabiliities, this is still a very entertaining gangster flick, made right at the end of the cycle and in the same year as THE ROARING TWENTIES (in which James Cagney sparred with Humphrey Bogart in what is the best prohibition drama ever made).

Though not as good as THE ROARING TWENTIES, EACH DAWN I DIE is still a cracking film. The main pleasure is in watching a superb ensemble cast of Warner contract players all at the top of their form, supporting Cagney and Raft who are clearly enjoying their only chance to act together (they had been friends since vaudeville days).

Warners clearly aimed to out do THE BIG HOUSE (1930) the famous early talkie that was perhaps the first film to show life inside a penitentiary. There's plenty of action here and the pace is fast. Maybe Mike Curtiz would have given it even more zip than Willam Keighley, always a somewhat pedestrian director in my opinion.

Of course the final third of the film becomes a tad cliched and overly sentimental but that was fairly typical of the times (it would not play today).

It's also great fun spotting the different sets on the Warner backlot that were re-used in this film. There's allso a good punchy score by Max Steiner who, for some weird reason, gets no on-screen credit.

Pretty Jane Bryan acquits herself well as Cagney's girlfriend (1939 was a great year for her, with her outstanding performances in THE OLD MAID and WE ARE NOT ALONE).

In the scenes where Cagney is in 'the hole' and later, pleading with the probation board, we even get a hint of his portrayal of Cody Jarrett (White Heat) that is still ten years ahead in the future.

Thoroughly enjoyable and well worth seeing, for all lovers of these stars and Warner Bros crime dramas.