They Drive by Night (1940)

“They Drive By Night” is a noir ripped in two; half belonging to a pair of scrappy brothers, and half to a vicious turn by Ida Lupino as a woman scorned.  Director Raoul Walsh seems to take a detour down a dark back road partway through “Drive By Night.” A film that begins…

theriverjordan

Some spoilers ahead. I loved the first half of They Drive by Night. It's a Depression film about men trying to scrape a living together any way they can, in this case by embracing the dangerous, largely unregulated world of long-haul trucking. Over the course of the first…

sakana1

"You gotta have your brains knocked out to be a truck driver." "You don't have to, but it helps." I've been so busy lately that for the most part I've been ignoring the superb slate showing all this month on TCM in tribute to Warner Brothers, so it felt good to revisit my…

theironcupcake

Cinematic Time Capsule 1940 Marathon - Film #52 I thought nothing happened with that dame? Nothing did… but I ain’t saying nothing won’t. George Raft and Humphrey Bogart hit the road as a couple of wildcat truckers trying to make it big in this nifty bit of 40’s…

📀 Cammmalot 📀

Starts out as a tough, solidly made working-class drama about George Raft and Humphrey as two brothers trying to make their way in the freelance trucking business, which Raoul Walsh of course can't help himself but turn into the occasional action-thriller setpiece. In this…

Josh Lewis

Much like 1939’s The Roaring Twenties. They Drive by Night offers Walsh a possibility of revisting his pre code work from the point of view of second period (one might argue the same is true of the even better The Strawberry Blonde).The first half is an old working class…

Filipe Furtado

"There's a flu epidemic up north and they're hot for lemons!" The Fabrini brothers, Joe (George Raft) and Paul (Humphrey Bogart) are getting sick of the hard scrabble life of long haul truck driving. The long hours, unscrupulous bosses, corruption and unreliable pay serve…

Jesse Snoddon

I love Walsh’s Warner period and even more those early ones (this, Roaring Twenties, Strawberry Blonde, Gentleman Jim) that seem like he is recapping 1930s American cinema. I prefer the early guys just scraping to make a living half to the plot-heavy second part, but they…

Filipe Furtado

They Drive by Night only barely qualifies as Film Noir. In fact, since it was made in 1940, one year before The Maltese Falcon more or less officially kicked off the “genre” I’d call it a proto-Noir. The crime element only kicks in towards the end and almost feels like an…

Gregor Kreyca