They Drive by Night (1940)

Raft, Lupino,Bogart and Sheridan

Thinking this was a Humphrey Bogart movie, I put this in and what I found was a tale of two brothers trying to make it in the trucking business. George Raft plays the other brother and it is George who is really the star here. Early in the movie the brothers make a pit stop in a roadside diner and meet waitress Ann Sheridan who we learn in the auxilary featurette was known as the "ummph girl" back then. George falls for her and she for him but that takes a while to sort itself out(it's funny to hear Cassie(Sheridan) referred to as "red" in a black and white film). We watch the brothers struggle to gain a footing in the highly competitive truckers world and George's fending off of the advances of a woman who is clearly no good for him-and that would be the dubious Ida Lupino who by pictures end makes a REAL star for herself.
Somewhere about 3/4 of the way through the story, Humphrey's brother role is shrunk into the background setting the stage for the grand finale involving Lupino and Raft.
In short this is a terrific movie and the disc includes the excellent featurette on the making of the picture and all involved. As a personal aside, looks like they've made an Ann Sheridan fan out of me! February 6, 2008

Fine-but it's 2 different movies in one!

"They Drive by Night" dawns as a hard core trucker yarn. Bogey and George Raft are brothers trying to hack it in a tough racket and dreaming of making it big. TDN soars when on the ground. Viewers get a gritty close up view of the rigors faced by independent drivers scrambling for loads and avoiding rip offs and unsavory characters. Then Bogey loses his arm in an accident, leaving GR to support his brother and wife. GR lands a straight job and this reviewer believes the film loses focus. Blue collars are exchanged for white shirts and dinner parties. A definite "complication" arises when Ida Lupino, the wife of Raft's boss, makes a play for him. A clumsy murder plot develops, straining credibility. This reviewer believes that by the time TDN reaches its' resolution, the film has lost its' way. The final call here is that the "over the road", early part of the movie easily rates 5 stars, but the latter, more "sophisticated" second half rates only 3. That averages out to 4 stars- which is not bad if one concedes that TDN is essentially 2 movies in one. Viewer interest may be elevated by the knowledge that the 1940 TDN was one of Bogey's last films before the release of "The Maltese Falcon", "High Sierra" and "Casablanca" and his climb to major stardom. December 8, 2007

EXCELLENT EARLY EXPERIMENT IN SOCIAL REALISM MELTS DOWN INTO EMBRYONIC IDA LUPINO WITNESS STAND CONFESSION

This was Humphrey's first film in which he got to show some complexity and he still only gets fourth billing under George Raft (a former ballroom dancer made movie hard guy who here, like Bogart, for the first time does not have to play here a hard gangster but a human and honest being), Anne Sheridan and the BRITISH Ida Lupino (gee, I never realized she was British - guess I was thinking the great Carmen Miranda!)

Real social realism drama on the ins and outs of being a small independent trucker making truck payments (with a great and mercifully NOT stereotypically anti-SEmitic) and getting to the loading dock first and fastest by driving all night without a apparent chemical edge except caffeine and burgers, gets destroyed by an unbelievable love folly driven by Ida Lupino trying to cheat with an unmoveable George Raft against her really irresponsible and dim witted older trucking mogul husband played wonderfully by the father of Gilligan's skipper, from whom the skipper inherited his dopey generous grin and large gestures and sweet humanity.

Many of the great walk ons do not get any credit here, including Ida's African American butler and maid, who despite having several lines, remains anonymous. Also the Mexican trucker whose one line repeated several times is: "Come on; we go." until he and his also excellently played partner go over a cliff asleep. This Mexican guy (who cared about his so-called legality back then?) is really really great, a tough actor, very modern, but not named. In fact by the standards of the day none of these really good actors are encouraged to act in a racist nor stereotypical manner, but real, rounded human beings we all may identify with. The director must be praised for this as well as the fine anonymous actors. The only racist representation in fact nay be the Irish American pinball playing apparent driver never seen behind a wheel and I don't think you would ever want to see him behind a wheel. His big line is falling down drunk while sousing: "It's a shame to see the boss make a public disgrace of himself." Apparently a big laugh at the time, or on a more dismal than normal sketh at Saturday Night Live.

Any way, and in brief since they are closing up this Mexican internet cafe here Thanksgiving evening, this could have been a wonderful experience in cinematic social realism exploring every aspect of an independent trucker's life of that time, from financing to family worries to facing down the major corporations, but instead it gets hijacked by the Ida Lupino stuff and Raft inheriting the trucking firm from rags to riches. No way. After that it's kind of like looking for social realism in that basically very dishonest On the Waterfront (Special Edition).

Ida Lupino's nervous breakdown was a train wreck, or truck wreck, waiting to happen and a psychological study that goes way over the top. The evil electric eye gate opener was just hitting supermarkets at the time and freaking everyone out apparently. Her overwrought witness stand confession found distant echo decades later on the grim Perry Mason Show.

This film could have easily been King Vidor's wonderful Our Daily Bread & Other Films of the Great Depression but I guess there is something in it for everyone, from a glimpse of reality to a screwball comedy romance to a film noir drunken breakdown. Just avoid the extra short subject included among the extras, the one with a silent Bogart walkon calming down the dead end kids but basically about discoveries in the studio commisary but which following Warner's prejudices wastes too much time making fun of the great Eric Von Stroheim and praising a really bad actress singer dancer, etc., who must have been Warner's flavor of the month. The director's bio extra is pretty good though.

Good movie gone bad, fell of the road somewhere along the line. Get out the popcorn and enjoy, and try not to fall asleep at the wheel. Get a load of Bogey waking up startled every time, like a guy sleeping at the wheel jerking awake. And get a load of his reference to Grand Illusion - Criterion Collection and Jean Gabin's one-armed waving of an empty fork, except here no one offers to cut his meat for him. This must have been Bogart's own homage to Stroheim.
November 22, 2007

Warners assembly line film with OK extras

As Leonid Maltin states in the "making of" featurette included in this DVD, Warner Brothers were experts at recycling their scripts and this film combines 2 genres - working class drama with high tone emotional melodrama, the latter cribbed from the 1935 "Bordertown".

"They Drive by Night" tells of the Fabrini brothers, George Raft and Humphrey Bogart, who set themselves up in the trucking business. The film benefits from a snappy script, sharp direction from Raoul Walsh and an endless and excellent supporting cast. The negatives are the wooden Raft in the lead (in fairness, this is one of his better performances) and an over-the-top Ida Lupino, who looks sensational, in the role of an obsessive wife who chases after him. Lupino's performance won her a Warner's contract but I find her hysterical and unconvincing, particularly in the famous scene in the court when she breaks down. Bette Davis played the same scene much more subtly 5 years earlier. The best performances for me are by Humphrey Bogart, much more subtle than Raft, and Ann Sheridan who delivers some great lines as a hash house waitress then moves to the warmth and genuine appeal which she showed in such films as "City for Conquest". Her acting shows far more range than the one note Lupino.

The DVD's print is good and the package includes a technicolour short film set in the Warner's Studios with a parody of Michael Curtiz and a nauseating plot about a waitress in the commissary achieving a star part. The film includes some dud songs and while the colour is good, the rest is just awful.

The DVD is best value if purchased as part of one of the Humphrey Bogart collections. October 30, 2007

Fatal Traction

Before Humphrey Bogart was an A-list star,and achieved silver screen immortality through "The Maltese Falcon" and "Casablanca",he paid his dues in this cheesy B film noir about independent truck drivers struggling with dire financial circumstances and a femme fatale. It's the kind of story Dashiel Hammett would write if he were parodying his own thrillers.

Bogart and George Raft star as brothers,struggling in their truck driving business. Ida Lupino stars as a desperate housewife,trapped in an unhappy marriage,and enamored of Bogart. Lupino connives her way to get rid of her husband and get Bogart...but not all goes as planned. In a case of interesting anachronism, automatic doors are crucial to the plot. Sort of like the ticking clock in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar." Lupino ends up going batty after her conscience gets the best of her,and the brothers rejoice in the end.

"They Drive By Night" is proof that not all old movies are Golden Age classics,and that not all great stars always choose great scripts. It's cheesy and campy. It was before Bogart reached leading man status,and is a fascinating,fun artifact. October 18, 2007

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