They Drive by Night (1940)

Directed by

Raoul Walsh

Genre

drama film, film noir

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 35m

Rated

NR

Rating

6.9 of 10 from 136 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

Two truck driving brothers struggle to make a living and face danger on the road. One brother gets caught up in a deadly situation with a femme fatale who kills her husband.

grittytensemelancholicfast-pacedsuspensefultoughblue-collar

What happens

They Drive by Night is a 1940 American film noir directed by Raoul Walsh and starring George Raft, Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino, and Humphrey Bogart, and featuring Gale Page, Alan Hale, Roscoe Karns, John Litel and George Tobias. The picture involves a pair of embattled truck drivers and was released in the UK under the title The Road to Frisco. The film was based on A. I. Bezzerides' 1938 novel Long Haul, which was later reprinted under the title They Drive by Night to capitalize on the success of the film. Part of the film's plot – that of Ida Lupino's character murdering her husband by carbon monoxide poisoning – was borrowed from another Warner Bros. film, Bordertown (1935) with Paul Muni and Bette Davis. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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