Description
George Raft and Humphrey Bogart share a driving ambition in They Drive by Night, a feisty tale of brothers trying to make a go of their independent trucking enterprise. Ann Sheridan plays a truck-stop waitress who can dish both the daily special and the patter. And Ida Lupino is the headstrong executive who mixes business and romance with murder. With Bogart again riding shotgun en route to leading-man stardom (a stature he would achieve the following year) and Raft handling the wheel in one of his best roles of the decade, this fine example of Warner Bros. social-conscience filmmaking (directed by Raoul Walsh) proved a sturdy vehicle for both actors. The movie proved even more fortuitous for Lupino. Her courtoom scene of babbling derangement made her a celebrated "overnight" sensation that resulted in a seven-year studio contract for her. Year: 1940 Director: Raoul Walsh Starring: George Raft, Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino, Humphrey Bogart, Special Feature: Original Theatrical Trailer B&W/93 Mins.
Amazon.com
By turns hard-nosed and ribald, They Drive by Night smashes through a vintage Warner Bros. yarn about truck drivers, the Depression, and one duplicitous dame. The opening reels are a forceful look at the dangerous lives of independent truckers (George Raft and Humphrey Bogart as brothers--Bogie in the supporting role, though he would soon eclipse Raft in Hollywood), battling the system and the economy. The final section veers into a less exciting murder frame-up, but Ida Lupino is so delicious as the Black Widow, it works. The robust humor of director Raoul Walsh dominates the film, with some truly hilarious double entendres aimed at outfoxing the censors. At the center of many such one-liners is Ann Sheridan, as a waitress who slings more than hash. Its close to being a classic, and the road sequences are as vital as those in The Grapes of Wrath, made the same year. --Robert Horton
Rate Points :4.0
Binding :DVD
Label :Warner Home Video
Manufacturer :Warner Home Video
MPN :D65841D
ProductGroup :DVD
Studio :Warner Home Video
Publisher :Warner Home Video
UPC :012569584129
EAN :9780790783062
Price :$19.98USD
Lowest Price :$2.86USD
Customer ReviewsRaft, Lupino,Bogart and Sheridan
Rating Point :4 Helpful Point :1
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(its 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 Georges 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, Humphreys 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 theyve made an Ann Sheridan fan out of me!
Fine-but its 2 different movies in one!
Rating Point :4 Helpful Point :2
"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 Rafts 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 Bogeys last films before the release of "The Maltese Falcon", "High Sierra" and "Casablanca" and his climb to major stardom.
Fatal Traction
Rating Point :3 Helpful Point :1
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. Its 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 Shakespeares "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. Its cheesy and campy. It was before Bogart reached leading man status,and is a fascinating,fun artifact.
EXCELLENT EARLY EXPERIMENT IN SOCIAL REALISM MELTS DOWN INTO EMBRYONIC IDA LUPINO WITNESS STAND CONFESSION
Rating Point :5 Helpful Point :5
This was Humphreys 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 Gilligans 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 Idas 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 dont think you would ever want to see him behind a wheel. His big line is falling down drunk while sousing: "Its 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 truckers 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 its kind of like looking for social realism in that basically very dishonest On the Waterfront (Special Edition).
Ida Lupinos 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 Vidors 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 Warners 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 Warners flavor of the month. The directors 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 Gabins one-armed waving of an empty fork, except here no one offers to cut his meat for him. This must have been Bogarts own homage to Stroheim.
Warners assembly line film with OK extras
Rating Point :3 Helpful Point :2
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. Lupinos performance won her a Warners 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 DVDs print is good and the package includes a technicolour short film set in the Warners 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.
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