Each Dawn I Die (1939) ***1/2

Each Dawn I Die (1939) is kind of a "message picture" but message pictures from this era somehow still feel less spoon-fed than they do now. Perhaps it's because the Academy Awards were still fairly new and the term "Oscar bait" hadn't been thrown around yet. 1939 remains of the greatest years in cinematic history, with Gone With The Wind being the highest grossing film and the one with the most Oscar nominations and wins (and can arguably be considered one of the earliest Oscar bait films).

But EDID is unmistakably a B movie. However, Warner Bros. B movies from the 30s hold up incredibly well—due to the casts, crews and craft on display. EDID is no exception. William Keighley (The Adventures Of Robin Hood (1938)) was no stranger to gangster films, having previously made 1935's 'G' Men with James Cagney and 1936's Bullets Or Ballots with genre heavies Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart. 

Here Keighley again directs Cagney plus George Raft, who previously turned in another memorable if underutilized gangster role seven years earlier in Howard Hawks' classic, Scarface (my review here). The two actors play beautifully off each other in this tale of political corruption and police brutality with a critical eye on the treatment of prisoners. 

EDID is a tight little crime flick with a focus on drama and the reality of "life in the joint" over action, but it does feature an exciting riot sequence in the finale. Stories of this nature would receive much grittier cinematic and televised portrayals as time went on, but there is much to appreciate here.