Highway Blind by Christina Harlin, Your Fearless Young Orphan They Drive by Night (1940) Directed by Raoul Walsh
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Highway Blind By Christina Harlin, your Fearless Young Orphan They Drive by Night (1940) Directed by Raoul Walsh They Drive by Night packs a lot of story into its run time – maybe more story than it can really support, as eventually I began to think I was watching a different movie altogether. Up to its halfway points, it’s a coarse story about a time when the interstate highways were new, and the trucking industry was, like any new and unexpected industry, unregulated, crime- infested and filled with gambler’s risks. Even now, truck-driving doesn’t have a reputation as an “easy” job, but seems like there was a time when it was cutthroat business, when driving for hours on end at the risk of their lives seemed worthwhile to the men involved, and they were in as much danger from mobsters and sabotage as they were from simple exhaustion. While it’s about truckers, They Drive By Night is a gritty tale, distinguishing itself by showing us what amounts to an underground society formed up around the lucrative business of transporting goods as quickly as possible. We are in California, where bountiful crops are just a bit out of reach of three or four major cities. In come the truckers, who load up apples, lemons, peaches, whatever they can find fresh and then race for where the demand is greatest. We’re interested in a pair of brothers, Joe and Paul Fabrini (George Raft and Humphrey Bogart, respectively, and Humphrey Bogart is the supporting character – so there’s something for you to wonder about). Joe and Paul lease a truck and trade places at the wheel, one sleeping while the other drives, so they can go nonstop from place to place. They’re just about to hit a big break, too. Just one more payment on the truck, and it’s theirs. Once they own their vehicle, they’ll make more profits from the loads they carry. Joe can see the future: he and Paul will buy a second truck, then a third, until they have a fleet and their own trucking business. Paul already has a wife (who worries about his “dangerous” career the way a spouse would worry about being married to a firefighter or a deep-sea fisherman, and in this case, it’s justifiable). Joe has met a former waitress Cassie (Ann Sheridan) whose sass, sweetness and sex appeal win him at once. Things look like they’re just about to work out for the Fabrinis. Until, disaster. Paul has a terrible accident, which not only wrecks their newly-paid-for truck (and I don’t think they had insurance on it) but costs him one of his arms. Joe, feeling guilty for sending Paul out on a drive that was too demanding, is determined to take care of Paul and his wife. He therefore takes a management job offer from a successful friend, Ed Carlsen, who They’re about to drive themselves right into a owns a lucrative trucking business of different film. his own. There’s more to it than that. Ed Carlsen’s wife Lana (the incomparable Ida Lupino) has long had her sites locked on Joe. She married Ed for his money only; it’s Joe who lights her fire. She believes that having Joe close by, managing the business, will put him squarely in her reach. Unfortunately for Lana, Joe is a “good guy,” which means that he is too grateful to Ed, and too in love with Cassie, to even think about fooling around with Lana. It’s a very strong man who can say “no” to Ida Lupino, if y’all ask me. Lana herself can’t believe it. She figures that this is a simple matter of elimination: if Ed is no longer in the picture, then Joe will come running into her arms. Solution? Kill Ed. Whoa, whoa, whoa. What happened to our movie about trucking adventures? You can kiss all that goodbye, because now this is a movie about a femme fatale committing murder in order to get herself a man, and while that sounds like the perfect recipe for film noir, the funny thing is, They Drive by Night had a lot more film noir quality to it when it was just about exhausted truck drivers. About the time the movie changes gears (pardon the pun) and turns into he-said-she-said crime drama, it loses all of its grungy heart. It might have helped matters if the “murder” plot were any good. Once the deed is done, however, the focus turns basically to the weakness of women, and even the considerable skill of Ida Lupino can’t rescue us from a badly written conclusion. On to the Noir Scoire, where anything can happen: Our Anti-Hero: Joe Fabrini – who is a smart, good guy who never falls under the temptation of either the femme fatale, or the promise of success. He is on the up- and-up. Takes care of his disabled brother. He has no fatal flaw – unless it’s that he’s irresistible to the boss’s wife. Honestly, this guy is a little too straight to be an “anti-“ anything. Take note of Humphrey Bogart playing second fiddle, as a guy whose life is basically thrown into chaos and humiliation. That’s our anti-hero. But the story is not about him. 6/10 As played by: George Raft. He’s stone-faced and a little sly-looking, like he might be up to no good. Maybe that’s why he made such an impression on me as cool- headed mobsters in other films. We can’t completely blame him for his role being something of a dud. What else was he supposed to do? The fact is, it’s fairly easy to forget he’s in the movie. That’s not a great compliment when you’re the lead character. 4/10 The Femme Fatale: Lana Carlsen. Lana makes a bad choice when it comes to obsession, deciding that uptight Joe Fabrini is the man for her, going so far as to murder her own husband in order to get Joe’s undivided attention. When Joe still refuses, she then implicates him in the murder, willing even to go to prison if it means she can punish Joe in the meantime. Thatta girl. If only she had been able to hold onto her resolve a little better; we must suffer through her descent into madness, which is treated like the ordinary course for women who misbehave. 8/10 As played by: Ida Lupino, as only Ida Lupino could manage. She’s hot even when the movie goes cold. She’s unforgettable, even if it’s not a well-written part for her. 8/10 The villain: Lana Carlsen once more, and once more, the script fails her. Weak-willed and plagued “As a woman, I’ll be taking this opportunity to wig out.” with guilt, she falls apart just when it would be most important for her to keep it together and become a terrific, stone- hearted menace. 7/10 As played by: Ida Lupino, for the same outcome. 8/10 (Author’s note – I would have given an extra point to every Lupino-related category (i.e., the previous four) if her character featured more prominently in the first half of the film. As I’ve mentioned, this felt like two movies pushed together into one. Both stories suffered for it.) The crime: A difficult call, here. I mean, clearly the crime is the murder of Ed Carlsen and the framing of Joe Fabrini, but remember that the first half of the film is about the rather renegade rules of truck-driving as a new industry. Then the crimes are sabotage, extortion, even manslaughter. Two different aspects of story going two quite different directions make this confusing for me. The solution to the crimes of the truck-driving industry seems to be “incorporation and industry!” which feels more like a promotional sales-movie than film noir. 7/10 The location: Wonderful, when it’s exhausted men in grungy, ramshackle trucks, rumbling along dangerous nighttime highways, gathering to slump over cups of coffee in diners where smart-assed waitresses trade quips with the customers. Later the scene of the murder has a nice, noir-ish touch to it, when Lana manages to kill her husband through the use of an automatic garage door. I like it when ordinary suburban perks are used to their murderous potentials. 10/10 The mood: The feeling of risky high-seas adventure (except conducted over American highways) pervades the first half of the film, as if we’re watching privateers learning how to navigate a new sort of ocean. In the second half, of course, we have the man falsely accused of murder. But the two parts don’t gel. Yes, I’m going to repeat this all the way through. 7/10 The sex-factor: The women in this movie carry the sex-appeal. Ida Lupino has it to spare, and Ann Sheridan holds her own as a working-class woman with a heart of gold. It’s a shame that it doesn’t seem to be reciprocated. I keep wondering what would have happened if Bogie had been . nah, never mind. The script needed sharper focus; this would have improved everything. For our sultry ladies, 8/10. Overall Noir Scoire: 73% .