Each Dawn I Die (Warner Bros.) (1939)

ADVANCE PUBLICITY —"“EACH DAWN I DIE” Mat 202—30e Cagney meets Raft face to face for the first time in Warner Bros.’ dynamite-packed drama “Each Dawn I Die,” coming to the Strand. CAGNEY MEETS A RAFT OF TROUBLE! Both ‘Killers’ Check On Insurance Before Going Into Action For “Each Dawn I Die” There’s seldom a dull moment in the working life of a screen tough guy. If he isn’t dodging bullets, he’s ducking punches, parrying knife thrusts or otherwise flirting with the undertaker. James Cagney and George Raft, for example, had just been through a first class prison riot one day. The National Guard had _ finally gotten Raft after firing enough machine gun bullets to wipe out a battalion. But, instead of getting a nice quiet siesta in a morgue, Raft had to come back to life to fight it out with Cagney with fists and handeuffs. Matched in Madison Square Garden, they would have drawn a ¢apacity house at top prices. Squaring off on the set of ‘‘ Each Dawn I Die,’’ the Warner Bros. picture opening next Friday at the Strand Theatre, they fought, not once but twice, before an audience of some fifty technicians. The first arena was the warden’s office of a penitentiary. The two principals came onto the set weighing 150 pounds ringside. In height and reach they were as well matched as any two welterweights who ever crawled through the ropes for a title bout. William Keighley, the director, called them together, for all the world like a fight referee giving final instructions. ‘‘T wouldn’t want you two boys to hurt each other,’’ he said, ‘‘ but even if this is supposed to be a staged fight to fool the warden, you have to make it look real. You’ve got your public to think of. Come out swinging at the bell — pardon me, I mean when I say ‘action.’ George Bancroft and Willard Robertson will pull you apart when we’ve had enough.’’ Some wag rang a gong. Keighley called ‘‘action.’’ Raft led with his right, something he wouldn’t have done in the ring. Cagney went down. Raft pounced on him like a mad wildeat. That wasn’t according to Marquis of Queensberry but the seript called for it. They threshed and tussled on the floor. Raft got a strangle hold on Cagney’s throat. Cagney got an Indian grip on Raft’s hair. Bancroft and Robertson jumped into the brawl. For a moment, it was a four-man melee. Raft came up with his scalp apparently intact. Cagney was jerked back and bounced against a desk. Guards rushed in to help Bancroft and Robertson. Arms pinioned, the two stars stood glaring at each other. ““Great’’ applauded Keighley. ““We’ll do the close shots now. Then you can go to lunch and we’ll have the second round in the train shed this afternoon.’’ ‘*Nice guy,’’ said Raft, as he tenderly massaged his scalp. ‘‘ He gives us an hour instead of three minutes between rounds.’’ The second bout was short but hardly sweet. Cagney and Raft sat side by side on a train coach seat. They were handcuffed together, Cagney’s right wrist to Raft’s left. Raft started the hostilities by making an insulting remark. Cagney swung with a left, as lethal appearing as Raft’s right. The scene was shot four times. Then the prop man unlocked the handeuffs. ‘‘Good going, boys,’’ said Keighley. ‘‘Tomorrow morning we’ll shoot the break from the courtroom. ’’ ‘“‘Remind me,’’ said Cagney, ‘“to check on my insurance.’’ Raft echoed him with a ferveni, ““Me, too.’’ ACTORS STRIVE FOR FILM JAIL TERM Hollywood is a place where men try to get into prison. One of the strangest job scrambles the film colony has ever seen occurred recently when 600 extra players gathered outside a sound stage at the Warner Bros. Studio. They were all would-be convicts, anxious to do a ‘‘stretch’’ in prison with James Cagney and George Raft in ‘‘Each Dawn I Die.’’ Most of the 600 were hard looking customers and it was patent a lot of them had gone to considerable pains to achieve that tough appearance. Some of the sears were transvarently synthetic, a great many of the scowls were as plainly forced. The prison volunteers milled about restlessly while they waited for the director, William Keighley, and his assistants to look them over and pass sentence. They talked little and when they did, they spoke out of the sides of their mouths. If one chanced to let a few words slip out naturally, he glanced about furtively to see if by some mischance a_ studio attache had heard him. When Keighley came out of the stage, the men fell into line for inspection. The director passed through the lines and picked a man here, another there. When it was all over, the 300 men selected marched happily away to be fitted with convict garb and be herded into prison. The others marched dejectedly to freedom. SCREENS TOUGHEST MUGGS ALL CAST IN “EACH DAWN | DIE" Seven of the screen’s top noteli “heavies” worked in “Each Dawn I Die,’ the Warner Bros. picture co-starring James Cagney and teorge Raft, which opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre. For a single picture to have seven menaces is not, in itself, unusual. Plenty of films surround their ace bad men with gangs. These subordinate villains invariably are called henchmen. The novelty of the menace setup in “Kach Dawn I Die” lay in the fact that none of the seven “heavies” was a henchman. Each was an individual specialist in skullduggery, hence, the race for meanest man honors was wide open. Victor Jory, Thurston Hall, John Wray, Joe Downing, Alan Baxter and Willard Robertson were the entries in this menace handicap. Jory and Hall played the crooked prosecutors who framed Cagney into the penitentiary on a “bum rap” and kept him there. Wray was a brutal prison guard. Downing and Baxter were convict “stool pigeons” and potential killers. And Robertson was a vicious deputy. Combine that lineup with the fact that the co-stars, Cagney and Raft, are absolute tups in screen menace, and add George Baneroft, the ace “heavy” of a decade ago, in the prison warden role, and it is easy to see “Each Dawn I Die” was no pink tea. SHE’S STAR-BOUND Mat 103—15c Jane Bryan plays the feminine lead in “Each Dawn I Die.” Jane Bryan will have to become a great dramatic star or make false prophets of a number of famed screen personalities, among them Bette Davis, James Cagney and George Raft. When Jane played Miss Davis’ youngest sister in ‘‘The Sisters,’’ the Academy Award winner was so impressed by her work that she told interviewers: ‘‘Watch this girl. She is a fine actress and she will be a real star.’’ A few months later, after she had scored with an outstanding performance in ‘‘Brother Rat,’’ Miss Bryan was cast as Cagney’s leading lady in the Warner Bros. prison drama, ‘‘Each Dawn I Die,’’ which opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre. The Irish redhead had played no more than half a dozen scenes with her when he echoed Miss Davis’ prediction. Oddiy, he used almost the same words Bette had. ‘Watch Jane Bryan,’’ he said, ‘and mark my words. She’s going places. She has a real feeling for drama and she can act. Furthermore, she has tremendous enthusiasm and absolute sincerity.’’ Raft, who co-stars with Cagney in ‘‘Each Dawn I Die’’ added his testimony following intensely dramatic scenes with Miss ‘Bryan. “‘She’s good,’’ he said simply. ‘And she’s going to be tops.’’ [18] Lives Of Cagney & Raft Are Like Alger Stories Critics of the American system of democracy might have spent a profitable hour or two in a grim, gray prison setting at the Warner Bros. film studio in Burbank. There they’d have found James Cagney and George Raft working and fighting together in a picture called ‘‘Each Dawn I Die,’’ which will open at the Strand Theatre next Friday. They would have seen, of course, a pair of celebrities who have won fame, fortune and public adulation. If, however, they had looked hard enough and listened keenly enough, they’d have seen and learned about a pair of New York kids whom wise Manhattanites of an earlier day wouldn’t have given the longshot’s chance of amounting to much. James Cagney and George Raft had a lot in common. The sidewalks of New York were their play and battle grounds. There they learned to think fast, ani hit hard. Neither was from a_ wealthy family and each had to work at such odd jobs as he could find. Both were scrappers. Cagney ws reared on the Upper East Side, Raft grew up on the West Side: otherwise they might have fought together as youngsters. Cagney got through Stuyvesant High School, helping to make his way by working as an office boy for the New York Sun and as a book page in a branch of the New York Publie Library. Then he entered Columbia University but the death of his father made it necessary for him to withdraw and get a job as a chorus hoofer. From that point on, he progressed to vaudeville, legitimate stage, and eventually screen stardom. Raft never got quite as far as entering college. In his high school days he made such a name for himself as an amateur boxer that he decided to turn professional. He met with only indifferent suc Star-Director Teaming Is Always Lucky James Cagney and Wiliam Keighley, a Warner Bros. director, worked together for the third time recently. The first time was some nine years ago in the Broadway stage play, ‘‘Penny Arcade,’’ which Keighley directed. The play proved a turing point in Cagney’s life, for Warner Bros. bought the play and signed Cagney to appear in it. That was the beginning of his brilliant Hollywood career. The next time Keighley and Cagney met, was in 1935, when Keighley directed and Cagney starred in ‘‘G-Men,’’ one of the great picture hits of all time. The third meeting took place just a few months ago when ‘‘ Each Dawn I Die’’ went into produetion at Warner Bros. And _ it proved a third lucky meeting for the prison film, which is now showing at the Strand, is being hailed as the finest thing of its kind ever to come out of Hollywood. cess as a fighter, so he quit the ring and became a hoofer. From this point he progressed to musical comedies, and hence to Hollywood. It is sereen history how Ratt turned from dancing to picture menacing and became a top flight star. It is not so well known, however, that Raft played his first role in a James Cagney picture called ‘“Taxi.’’? It was a dancing bit and Cagney got him the job. The redthatched Irishman said Raft was the only man who could do the part. ‘‘Each Dawn I Die’’ costars Cagney and Raft. Not a bad ease, it would seem, for democracy and the American tradition of equality. VICTOR JORY BOTH FIGHTER & ACTOR For a long time, Victor Jory was to:n between two ambitions. He couldn’t decide whether to be a fighter or an actor. Jory need not have been worried. He became both. Officially, of course, he’s an actor, and a good one who works regularly in Hol.ywood’s motion pictures. Because he specializes in tough menace roles, however, he does almost as much fightine as act:n. There’s his role of an early cow country bad POU ogre vento dWonijtes Rees 1 SSD 07 Gee City,’’ for example, in which he battled furiously with Errol Flynn. There are, of course, roles in which he does not Lees ome VaR Regs 1G Ske played one of them recently in So Siacerh Dawn I Die,’’ the Warner Bros. prison drama starring James Cagney and George Raft which opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre. In that film he’s a suave, polished and extremely crooked politician. Jory started fighting about the same time he began acting. As a student at the University of California he was prominent in undergraduate theatricals and a boxing star. Leaving college, he went to British Columbia, wnere he became light heavyweight boxing champion of the province and also did his first professional acting with the Empress Stock Company in Vancouver. Acting finally won out and he progressed from stock compan:es to Broadway, from Broadway to Hollywood. — Despite his busy schedule in pietures, Jory continues his interest in the stage and has been active as one of the guiding spirits of the Pasadena Playhouse. Victor Jory Mat 102—15c Mat 201—30c A ‘break’ that never cleared the gate. Scene is from “Each Dawn I Die,” starring James Cagney and George Raft, coming to Strand.