Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

This is one of the many tough guy prison dramas where a framed reporter (Cagney) goes to prison. In stir he meets the big tough guy (Raft) who has been sentenced to 199 years for his crimes against the system.Raft has so many contacts in the underworld that he manages to arrange an escape for himself from his own trial in a courtroom. When he gets out he tells Cagney he is going to get the rat that framed him.Raft is excellent in this one and winds up back in jail and getting the confession from the guy who framed Cagney. Raft and the rat both get theirs and Cagney finally gets out.While in stir, Cagney's girlfriend and mom show up to visit. Mom brings all of his favorite foods including chocolate cake. The way to make tough guy Cagney break down is for his mom to cry and give him the cake.At the end of the film, a bunch of cons get guns and try to escape. They are stopped by the National Guard with machine guns and grenades. Cagney is excellent as Raft's Co-star and the warden is played by a western actor who had appeared in John Ford's classic Stagecoach.

***SPOILERS*** Brutal 1930''s prison movie with framed reporter Frank Ross, James Cagney, sent up the river for a crime he didn't commit when he was getting too close to expose D.A Jesse Hanley's, Thurston Hall, dealings with and payoffs from the mob. Given a 1 to 20 year sentence for a phony DUI charge that killed 3 people Ross is determined to prove his innocence by exposing the man who framed him D.A Hanley. To rub salt into a wound in was in fact Hanley who prosecuted him at his trial. It's when Ross gets friendly with lifer Hood Stacy, George Raft, the two concoct a perfect plan for escape. Willing to spend a month in the "Hole",solitary confinement, so he can stand trial Stacey has Ross rat him out as the person who did in stoolie Limpy Julien, Joe Downing. It was Limpy who had previously tried to knife him which Ross prevented or tripped him up him from doing. For doing that Stacey promises that he, with his outside mob connections, will find out who framed him and get him freed from prison. It's while he's to stand trial that Stacey plans with the help of his hoodlum friends to make his escape.Everything goes smoothly until at his trial, with Ross as a witness against him, that Stacy makes his escape jumping out of a three floor window and into a getaway car. But in Stacey feeling that Ross betrayed by tipping off his friends at the paper he worked for to be there to get the big scoop that could have jeopardized his escape plan. Now feeling that he owes Ross nothing, in finding out who framed him, Stacey goes on his merry way as Ross, who's suspected in setting up Stacey's escape, is left hanging.***SPOILERS*** It's Ross' girlfriend and fellow reporter Jane Bryan, Joyce Conover, who gets Stacey to change his mind about Ross and thus now plans to give himself up and get a chance , while behind bars, to set things right or kiss and make up between him and Ross. This soon leads to a prison brake where almost the entire prison population ends up getting gunned down by the police and national guard that finally has a fatally wounded Stacey get the person who framed Ross a hood named Carlisle, Alan Baxter. It's Carlisle who just happened to be one of the inmates in the prison! I guess former D.A and now Governor Hanley couldn't or wouldn't give him a pardon. With his job in forcing Carlisle to confess to the prison warden Armstrong, George Bancroft, who was being held hostage Stacey ended his good deed by proving Ross innocent and ends up going down for the count in a blaze of police and national guard bullets.P.S Believe it or not "Each Dawn I Die" just happened to be Soviet Dictator Joseph "Uncle Joe" Stalin's favorite movie. Stalin must have enjoyed it so much because it reminded him of the prison or gulag system that he had set up in the Soviet Union that he loved so much.

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")

EACH DAWN I DIE isn't a bad melodrama but neither is it a great one . The premise is sound , a crusading investigative journalist called Frank Ross is framed by bad guys and faces years in prison which sets up an involving story . Unfortunately the logic of the plot turns are never as strong as they should be and they become noticeable as weak plot turns . Of course it was made in 1939 meaning the fear of anal gang rape doesn't exist for film characters but there's niggling doubts that stop the film being as involving as it should and the melodrama and clichés do become melodrama and clichés One problem is that the most hated character is Limpy , a stool pigeon who nonchalantly informs upon everyone up to no good . He does this in a brazen way in full view of other prisoners which in reality would lead to the other prisoners killing him first chance they got . He's only been there a month before Frank is sentenced but even so you'd think someone would have bumped him off sooner . It's due to plot mechanics that he has to die after Frank enters jail , ie Hood Stacey wants Frank to claim that he was responsible so Stacey can break out of custody during the murder trial and Stacey promises to find out who framed Frank in return . There's no real reason for Frank to point the finger , it could be any prisoner and one can't help thinking Stacey would have more dependable associates who he could trust . In turn Frank is guilty of total naivety for thinking Stacey will keep his word . He's also putting his head on the block since he's helping a fugitive to escape . Wouldn't he be better off trusting his fellow crusaders at the newspaper than relying on the word of a convict ? Having said that if someone did something logical then there wouldn't have been so much incident . Just a pity the screenwriter didn't think things through a little more Frank Ross is played by James Cagney , who is the personification of someone who is a film star but not a good actor . This isn't really a criticism because he has a strong presence and good to watch even though his mannerisms are very exaggerated . Dare I say he was a star because of this rather in spite of this ? George Raft as Stacey also has a presence though thankfully it's less exaggerated than Cagney . Director William Keighley does manage a very memorable montage sequence where Stacey does time in the hole but he's not really on the same artistic level as Michael Curtiz and where ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES grabs you on an emotional level that makes you forget all the flaws of that film Keighley unfortunately doesn't which is something of a pity . It's not a bad film but not a particularly good one either