THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT

THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT is a 1940 film produced by Warner Brothers and directed by Raoul Walsh. Some might call it a film noir. I'm rather doubtful about that appellation, although the narrative does feature a murder. 

THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT is also a 1938 British film about truck drivers with a crime element. Sound familiar? Then there is THEY LIVE BY NIGHT (1948), an American noir directed by Nicholas Ray and CLASH BY NIGHT (1952), another noir, this one directed by Fritz Lang. Those last two have nothing in common but I have been confused more than once by the like sounding titles. Now that I've seen all three films, it should be easier to keep things straight.

While we're on the subject of truck driving movies, the sub genre includes WAGES OF FEAR, the brilliant French film from 1953, remade in America by William Friedkin in 1977 as SORCEROR. There's WHITE LINE FEVER (1975), CONVOY (1978, directed by Sam Peckinpah!) and Steven Spielberg's made-for-television masterpiece DUEL (1971). There are, of course, others but these are the ones that immediately spring to mind. 

THEY LIVE BY NIGHT starts out as a two-fisted adventure film about two brothers, Joe and Paul Fabrini (George Raft and Humphrey Bogart) who work as independent truck drivers in Southern California. They owe money on their truck and are always trying to stay one step ahead of the repo man. 

The second act of the film becomes a routine drama as Joe meets and falls in love with waitress Cassie (Ann Sheridan) and Paul looses an arm in an accident. Joe accepts a job with a big trucking firm owned by his old friend and former trucker Ed Carlsen (Alan Hale). Things become complicated by the fact that Joe once had a fling with Mrs. Lana Carlsen (Ida Lupino), a scheming, conniving woman who wants Joe back at any price.

The third act is where the murder is committed when Lana kills Ed and gets Joe to agree to 50% ownership of the company. She, of course, has the other 50%. But when Joe won't go along with her advances and declares his wedding to Cassie, Lana cracks and implicates Joe in the killing.  All of which sets up a dramatic courtroom finale.

THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT is a solid film with a cast of Warner Brothers contract players. Raft is top billed, Sheridan is second and Bogart (not yet a huge star), is third.  Alan Hale and George Tobias appeared in dozens of Warner Brothers films while Ida Lupino went on to become a noir icon both in front of and behind the camera.

And I can't be the only person who has noted a similarity between these two images: