THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT: Blu-ray (Warner Bros./First National, 1940) Warner Archive
Director Raoul Walsh’s They Drive by Night (1940), usually gets branded as an American noir. But actually, its make-up, derived from a 1938 novel by A.I. Bezzerides, is more demanding and complex. The opening scenes, depicting the trials and tribulations of a pair of wildcat long haul truck drivers, the brothers Fabrini – Joe (played affectingly by George Raft) and Paul (less so, by a brooding Humphrey Bogart, eager to break free of his Warner Bros.’ typecasting as second-string) plays like a ‘road’ picture with screwball elements provided by wisecracking gal/Friday, Cassie Hartley (superbly rendered by Ann Sheridan). The fallow insert to follow this, depicting the brothers run up against a spate of bad luck, chiefly entertains the subtler domestic conflict between Paul and his wife, Pearl (Gale Page). Basically, she wants children and he prefers the open road. It’s as unprepossessing a slice-o-life as any ever depicted at the movies – Warner-produced or otherwise. But then the Jerry
