“High Sierra” helmer Raoul Walsh’s “They Drive By Night” chronicles the trials and tribulations of the hard-luck Fabrini brothers, Joe (George Raft of “Scarface”) and Paul (Humphrey Bogart of “Casablanca”), who drive around the clock to deliver merchandise around California. Eventually, since they have fallen behind on their vehicular loan payments, they must now dodge their creditors. Fortunately, Joe and Paul buy a load on their own dime rather than contracting themselves out for peanuts to a trucking firm. The profits enable them to pay off their truck. No sooner do things appear rosy than disaster strikes. Joe makes the mistake of asking Paul to take over the wheel from him because he is feeling drowsy. Mind you, Paul himself cannot seem to get enough shuteye. Earlier, Walsh showed the fate of a trucker who nodded off at the wheel. Predictably, Drifting off asleep Paul plunges their paid-for truck with its valuable into a ravine. Joe bails out at the last moment, while Paul rides the load into the ground. Miraculously, Joe survives the crash none the worse for wear. Sadly, Paul isn’t as fortunate. Doctors take off his right arm. Paul’s wife Pearl (Gale Page of “Crime School”) had been worrying herself constantly about her husband’s uncertain fate. She hates that he cannot spend more time at home with her. She dreams of them having a baby to comfort her in her loneliness. Paul argues they cannot afford a child.
Scenarists Jerry Wald of “The Roaring Twenties” and Richard Macaulay of “Across the Pacific” adapted A.I. Bezzerides’ novel "Thieves' Market." The wit and spontaneity of their snappy dialogue energizes the action. Joe and Paul swap loaded words with Cassie Hartley (Ann Sheridan of “King’s Row”), a waitress slinging bacon and eggs at a roadside dinner. Later, she quits because the owner cannot keep his hands to himself when he is around her. She hopes she will get lucky in Los Angeles. Happily, Joe obliges her, giving her a lift to L.A. with him where he looks for loads to buy. Eventually, Joe lands a job working for an old friend, Ed Carlsen (Alan Hale of “Desperate Journey”), who owns a trucking outfit. Initially, Ed saw Joe and another irate trucker tangle over who would land a load from Ed. Remembering his old friend, Ed invites Joe up to his second story office. Carlsen’s big heart is matched only by his eternally happy outlook. Ed’s trophy wife, Lana (Ida Lupino of “High Sierra”), squandering his cash like confetti, throttles the drama into high gear in “They Drive By Night.” She yearns to sprawl in Joe’s arms. She convinces Ed to hire Joe, but not as a trucker. Instead, she convinces Ed that Joe can do more for them in the office than out on the asphalt.
Afterward, Lana drives Joe crazy with her passes at him. He shuns her like poison. First, he refuses Lana’s advances because Ed is his good friend. Second, Joe has eyes only for Cassie. He furnishes her with room and board. After he drove her to L.A., Joe passed out in Cassie’s bed. Instead, Cassie had to bed down for the night in a chair. Now, the Production Code Administration forbade showing a couple sleeping in the same bed. Eventually, Joe hires Paul, and business begin to boom. During a party at Ed’s new estate, Ed boasts about one of his novel gadgets. He has installed a photo-electric eye in his garage. When he approaches the garage, the vehicle breaks the light beam of the mechanism. This prompts the garage door to retract, allowing the motorist to enter and park their vehicle. Walsh and his writers go out of their way to emphasize this novelty. Later, after he is so sloshed he cannot drive, Ed has Lana drive them home. When she parks in the garage, she realizes Ed has passed out. Lana lacks the strength to remove him from the vehicle. Instead, she leaves him in the car with the engine running. Ultimately, Ed dies from carbon monoxide, and Lana knew exactly what she was doing when she let him die.
The Production Code stipulated nobody was above the law. Lana confesses her guilt to the District Attorney. Initially, the D.A. rules it as a case of accidental death. Later, after Joe continues to ignore her advances, Lana convinces the D.A. that Joe threatened to kill her if she didn’t kill her husband. The D.A. swallows this lie without blinking and has Joe arrested allegedly for his part in the murder. Clearly, Walsh and company appropriated the complicated murder subplot from another WB film, Archie Mayo’s Latino thriller “Border Town” (1935) with Paul Muni and Bette Davis. Nevertheless, Walsh makes more comprehensive use of it. Although Lana insists to the D.A. that Joe drove her to kill Ed, she cannot cope with her own sense of guilt. The electric eye technology haunts her. She discovers the facility where she is being held boasts such technology. Every time she encounters an electric eye, she feels overwhelmed by her guilt, like Shakespeare’s Lady MacBeth. During Joe’s trial for his complicity in Ed’s murder, Lana melts down in court. The judge dismisses the murder charges against Joe.
The cast is first-rate, and Walsh’s fast-paced, no-frills direction maintains momentum. Lupino is riveting in her portrayal as Lana. The tacked-on murder and trial seems rather contrived but inevitable. Humphrey Bogart was still confined to thankless second-string roles at this point in his career. Meanwhile Raft played the level headed big brother who used his brains to get ahead. This ranks as one of the Raft’s more sympathetic roles. Alan Hale steals the show with his antics. Altogether, “They Drive By Night” qualifies as an above average Walsh effort.
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