They Drive by Night with Humphrey Bogart

They Drive by Night with Humphrey Bogart

The presence of Humphrey Bogart in this film made me expect a lot from it…

-          Lower your expectations is one rule of happiness

If not a failure, this is no Casablanca.

And Bogart only has a supporting role.

Ann Sheridan is great as Cassie, but I did not appreciate Ida Lupino that much.

Humphrey Bogart plays Paul, brother of Joe Fabrini, the real hero of this film.

The brothers Drive by Night, as truckers.

They have a hard life, having to sleep only little, trying to get their load in time to be sold in the market.

The boss and owner of the operation is abusing his position and does not pay the money he owes these two drivers.

Furthermore, they have to pay money they owed for the truck and the lender is trying to confiscate their truck.

At one of the stops along the trucking routes, they meet the extremely beautiful Cassie and a love affair starts.

I was expecting Bogart to be the knight in shining armor.

But it is his brother Joe that becomes deeply involved with the attractive waitress, who moves with him.

At the same time, Lana Carlsen is very interested in this ladies ‘man, who rejects her, because she is married to his friend.

Ed Carlsen owns a trucking business and loves his wife, for whom he is not sophisticated and interesting enough.

She wants Joe.

This intrepid man tries to start his own business and buys a load of lemons to sell for a better price and use the money to get going.

It works very well.

In the first couple of stages.

Joe and Paul make a tremendous profit of more than 100% on the lemons and they pay what they owe for the truck.

Alas, on the way back they have an accident.

As a result, Paul loses his right arm.

Paradoxically, his wife welcomes the injury, because she says that now that he cannot drive anymore, he will be at home.

-          They Drive By Night means that they are also away from home for a long time

-          Nights and days

Seeing as she cannot get close to Joe, who refuses to call her anything but Mrs. Carlsen and keeps the distance, Lana has a diabolic plan

She kills her husband.

As Joe is now important in the business owned by the late husband, the widow proposes that they become partners.

Business partners.

She even makes the proposal sound very reasonable by explaining that she knows nothing about the trucks.

-          Besides, Ed would have wanted it

-          I guess it is true

The partnership works well, up to the moment when Lana Carlsen finds out about the love between Joe and Cassie.

She then tells him that she had actually killed her husband and she has no intention of letting Joe go after such an act.

And seeing as she is not winning any ground with this confession, she goes to the police to tell them that Joe has forced her to kill her husband.

What happens next?

Well, it is interesting, if not the end of Casablanca…