Reeling Backward: They Drive By Night (1940)

George Raft, Ann Sheridan and Humphrey Bogart star, but Ida Lupino steals the show in this tonally all-over-the-place film noir about the underbelly of truck driving.

I’m not even sure what to call “They Drive By Night.”

It’s generally thought of as a film noir, with director Raoul Walsh (“White Heat”) considered a master of morally ambiguous crime-and-punishment stories. But it’s also a blue-collar look at the underbelly of truck drivers, almost a cinematic sibling to “The Grapes of Wrath” as they struggle to make a buck amid a daunting landscape of hawkish merchants and greedy financiers. There’s plenty of romance, wholesome and otherwise, and goofy/bawdy humor.

Normally I appreciate films that don’t fit neatly into any one box. But in the case of “Drive,” the result is a movie that’s tonally all over the place, confused about what it’s trying to be.

It stars George Raft, Ann Sheridan and Humphrey Bogart, with the latter in a smallish supporting role as Raft’s brother. Really, though, it’s Ida Lupino who steals the show in a femme fatale performance that’s riveting and disturbing. She doesn’t even show up until about a half-hour into the movie, and dominates every scene she’s in the rest of the way.

Both she and Bogie were not stars at the time, but would go on to headline together in “High Sierra” the next year. It’s considered one of Bogart’s most indelible roles, but Lupino actually got top billing over him.

Lupino came from a family of British performers, and was pushed into acting at a young age even though she preferred writing. At first shoehorned into blonde ingenue roles — she was dubbed the “English Jean Harlow” — she gradually found darker and more interesting work in front of the camera.

Behind it, Lupino eventually got the chance to write and direct, with eight feature films and a bunch of television episodes in her filmogaphy. When Elmer Clifton fell ill during the production of 1949’s “Not Wanted,” she took over as director but insisted on Clifton receiving the credit, instead the film being promoted as “Ida Lupino Presents.” Later that same year she got her first official gig as director for “Never Fear,” which she also wrote, loosely based on her own teenage bout with polio.

“Drive” was adapted (by Jerry Wald and Richard Macaulay) from A. I. Bezzerides’ 1938 novel “The Long Haul,” which was re-released with the same title as the movie to take advantage of the publicity. As near as I can tell the book is just about the quotidian plight of Depression-era truckers. All of the film noir angle was essentially lifted straight out of the 1935 film “Bordertown” starring Bette Davis and Paul Muni and grafted onto this one.

(Modern audiences who fret about sequels and remakes would be shocked by the more brazen practices of Golden Age Hollywood, where entire plots would be carried over to another movie just a few years apart — sometimes even employing nearly the same cast or crew.)

Raft and Bogart play Joe and Paul Fabrini, veteran independent aka “wildcat” truckers operating mainly in California. They haul produce up and down the state at the behest of the moneymen, staying on the road weeks at a time with little dough in their pockets to show. They’re also being chased by Farnsworth (Charles Haltom), the weaselly loan shark who owns the note on their jalopy truck.

I was amused by the scene of Joe making a gas station owner extend a line of credit to fill them up, because he doesn’t have the cash: $12.90 for 70 gallons of gas and eight quarts of oil. That’s $291 in today’s dollars.

After an unfortunate crash because of some wild road-hogging teens, they bump into Cassie Hartley (Sheridan), aka Red, a wiseacre waitress at a roadside diner. Later they pick her up when she flees the handsy proprietor. She and Joe take an instant shine to each other, and he agrees to pay to set her up in hotel while she looks for new work, with the implication of a courtship whenever he’s in town.

Paul is married to Pearl (Gale Page), a good-hearted long-suffering type, who endures her husband’s extended absences and longs to have a baby, which he insists they can’t afford.

Joe is friends with Ed Carlsen (Alan Hale Sr.), a former trucker himself who hit it big and now owns his own trucking company. Still a gregarious back-slapper who puts on no airs, Ed continually offers to hire Joe as part of his fleet, along with the encouragement of one of his current drivers, Irish McGurns (Roscoe Karns), an entertainingly dimwitted fellow obsessed with the pinball machines in the many roadside haunts he frequents.

Lupino plays Lana, Ed’s wife of eight years, who glares at him with open distaste and responds to his every joke with venomous barbs, which he gaily regards as hilarious. She buries her unhappiness in a seemingly endless parade of new cars and clothes she buys with Ed’s money. Lupino was only about 21 when the movie was shot, but manages to seem much older and bitter.

Lana is also madly in love with Joe, and apparently has been pursuing him for the past few years with increasingly brazen demands. Joe has chastely refused, unwilling to betray a friend like Ed, which only seems to infuriate her more, triggered every time he addresses her as “Mrs. Carlsen.”

Now, I’ll try to say this next part without being overly unkind. Raft — short and thick-waisted, age 45 and with dark circles under his eyes no amount of Hollywood makeup could completely hide — was not exactly a classic matinee idol. The idea that his Joe, with little money in his pockets and a brusque manner, would be deeply desired by not one but two hot young dames seems rather far-fetched, even by showbiz standards.

Moving on…

Things start to turn around for the Fabrini boys when, with Ed’s help, they begin buying their loads themselves and hauling them to the place they can get the best price, rather than following the dictat of others. But then they suffer tragedy when Paul, egged on by Joe to drive through the night, falls asleep at the wheel. They tumble off a cliff, losing their cargo, their truck (uninsured) and Paul’s right arm.

This would be an interesting dynamic to explore, Joe’s guilt over the accident and Paul’s feeling of emasculation. Instead, the movie enters a typical film noir plot phase, almost like opening a gate and walking onto an adjoining property.

I kind of wanted to linger where we were.

Joe takes a job with Ed as his traffic manager — at Lana’s urging, so he’ll be close at hand and not out on the road — and quickly excels. When he continues to rebuff her, and introduces Cassie as his fiancee, Lana snaps. Bringing a drunken Ed home from a party to celebrate their new mansion, she locks him in the garage with the car engine running using the fancy new automatic light beam device that opens and closes the door.

After Ed’s gone, his death officially listed an accident, Lana lures Joe into becoming her partner in the business, figuring their closeness will eventually force him to fall into her clutches. When he is steadfast, she comes up with the idea of admitting Ed’s murder to the district attorney, claiming Joe browbeat her into doing it. The last sequence of the film is Joe’s trial, which is resolved when Lana, increasingly guilt-ridden and unbalanced, breaks down in a psychotic fit on the witness stand.

So what we’ve got here is a lot of interesting movie pieces that don’t quite fit together: road picture, romance, comedy, murder-mystery, courtroom drama. I most enjoyed the early portion illuminating the tough, dreary life on the road truck drivers endure and the latter bit where Lana becomes the central character, a seductress undone by her own schemes.

The rest is… just kind of a mess.

Bogart isn’t given very much to do, one of the last films in his long apprenticeship as a background player. He really gets just one featured scene where he laments his new handicap. After a charismatic introduction, a tough-talking lady down on her luck, Sheridan similarly fades into the background

I was bemused by the very tacked-on good-feels ending. Having beaten the wrap in court, Joe announces to Cassie his intention to give his share of Carlsen’s company to the truckers and resume his life on the road. Telling Joe she’ll support him in whatever his choice, she sneaks off to a phone and convinces Paul, Irish and the rest to refuse this generous offer — even though it would immediately and drastically improve their own lots.

They happily comply, complete with smarmy over-the-shoulder exchanges of winks, and Cassie has got her man, right where she wants him. No one seems to mention this bit of sly manipulation is something straight out of Lana’s playbook. Truth is, Joe’s still a sucker, but I guess it’s OK for the right woman.

“They Drive By Night” isn’t a particularly good movie, but it is an interesting one. Ida Lupino announces herself as a major player, shucking off the good-girl wig Hollywood had tried to place upon her head. Her career was wheeling onto roads less taken.