Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Each Dawn I Die

So my dad's got this thing called Warners Archives, which streams movies on the television machine. He shells out ten dollars a month for it, so he feels like he has to watch a lot of movies to get his money's worth. And I watch a lot of movies with him, 'cause it's better than sleeping or doing homework.

So I get to see a lot of old black-and-white Hollywood Warner Bros. movies, where they say things like "You dirty rat" and "Take a powder", sometimes even in the same sentence. Like in this movie called Each Dawn I Die, with a very cool and energetic actor called James Cagney and a not-so-cool and greasy actor called George Raft, two mugs doing hard time in the Big House. The warden is portrayed by George Bancroft, because Barton MacLane was probably busy that week.

See, I told you I've seen a lot of old Warner Bros. movies.

The movie's pretty action-packed, and pretty good when it's not preaching to us about the brutality of prison life. These mugs get what they deserve, if you ask me.

However, the one thing that's missing is that scene in a smoky nightclub with a throaty chanteuse in a spangly dress, in front of a thirty-piece orchestra, followed by a lone spotlight, warbling the title song. A little something I imagine going something like this:

Each dawn I die,
Each night I cry.
Each day I pray
The day away.
Zoobie zoobie wah wah.

Of course that final line is open to interpretation, so long as it's sung with sincerity.