They Drive by Night (Snap case)
by Crane Wilbur, Raoul Walsh
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Ann Sheridan, Gale Page, George Raft, Humphrey Bogart, Ida LupinoDirector: Crane Wilbur, Raoul Walsh
Writer: Crane Wilbur
Producer: Hal B. Wallis
Producer: Mark Hellinger
Writer: A.I. Bezzerides
Writer: Jerry Wald
Writer: Richard Macaulay
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 95 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-11-04
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of They Drive by Night (Snap case)
Movie Review: EXCELLENT EARLY EXPERIMENT IN SOCIAL REALISM MELTS DOWN INTO EMBRYONIC IDA LUPINO WITNESS STAND CONFESSION
Summary: 5 Stars
This was Humphrey's 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 Gilligan's 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 Ida's 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 don't think you would ever want to see him behind a wheel. His big line is falling down drunk while sousing: "It's 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 trucker's 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 it's kind of like looking for social realism in that basically very dishonest On the Waterfront (Special Edition).
Ida Lupino's 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 Vidor's 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 Warner's 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 Warner's flavor of the month. The director's 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 Gabin's one-armed waving of an empty fork, except here no one offers to cut his meat for him. This must have been Bogart's own homage to Stroheim.
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