They Drive by Night (1940)

(On Cable TV, January 2021) If you’re lured to They Dive by Night by Humphrey Bogart’s name, be warned that this is a film from his ascending stardom era—not the Bogart of pop-culture legend, but the rough-hewn character actor he was before his trench-coat fame. The story definitely has him as a supporting player to a lead duo played by George Raft and Ida Lupino as, respectively, a truck driver trying to make ends meet, and the scheming seductive wife of a trucking company owner. This being on the edge of a film noir, she kills her husband and promotes Raft’s character in a bid to get closer to him, but he’s already smitten with a far more wholesome girl. Bogart plays Raft’s brother/trucking partner, while Ann Sheridan plays the good girl. The thriller elements are solid enough (although the ending clearly belongs to a more reasonable, less spectacular age), but the look at circa-1940 trucking can be fascinating—my favourite sequence in the film details how the brothers take a load of produce across the state and negotiate themselves a nice windfall. Bogart remains interesting in one of his last supporting roles, while the normally compelling Lupino is even more captivating as a lust-crazy murderess. While a minor film by most standards, They Drive by Night remains a solid early noir with a few compelling performances.