THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT

June 2, 1941

Lux Radio Theatre (1935-55) was a radio anthology series that adapted Broadway plays during its first two seasons before it began adapting films (”Lux Presents Hollywood”). These hour-long radio programs were performed live before studio audiences in Los Angeles. The series became the most popular dramatic anthology series on radio, broadcast for more than 20 years and continued on television as the Lux Video Theatre through most of the 1950s. The primary sponsor of the show was Unilever through its Lux Soap brand.

They Drive By Night was a 1940 motion picture produced by Warner Brothers.  It was directed by Raoul Walsh and starred George Raft, Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino, and Humphrey Bogart.

 It was released in the UK under the title The Road to Frisco. The film was based on A. I. Bezzerides’ 1938 novel Long Haul, which was later reprinted under the title They Drive by Night to capitalize on the success of the film. Part of the film’s plot was borrowed from another Warner Bros. film, Bordertown (1935) with Paul Muni and Bette Davis.

Synopsis ~ When one of two truck-driving brothers loses an arm, they both join a transport company where the other is falsely charged as an accessory in the murder of the owner.

CAST

Lucille Ball (Marie Carlsen) was born on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. She began her screen career in 1933 and was known in Hollywood as ‘Queen of the B’s’ due to her many appearances in ‘B’ movies. “My Favorite Husband” eventually led to the creation of “I Love Lucy,” a television situation comedy in which she co-starred with her real-life husband, Latin bandleader Desi Arnaz. The program was phenomenally successful, allowing the couple to purchase what was once RKO Studios, re-naming it Desilu. When the show ended in 1960 (in an hour-long format known as “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”) so did Lucy and Desi’s marriage. In 1962, hoping to keep Desilu financially solvent, Lucy returned to the sitcom format with “The Lucy Show,” which lasted six seasons. She followed that with a similar sitcom “Here’s Lucy” co-starring with her real-life children, Lucie and Desi Jr., as well as Gale Gordon, who had joined the cast of “The Lucy Show” during season two. Before her death in 1989, Lucy made one more attempt at a sitcom with “Life With Lucy,” also with Gordon.

The role was played on screen by Ida Lupino.  For radio, the character’s first name was changed from Lana to Marie. 

George Raft (Joe Fabrini) had appeared in the 1933 film The Bowery with Lucille Ball, also directed by Walsh.  

Repeats the role he played in the film version. 

Brian Donlevey (Paul Fabrini) was a 1940 Oscar nominee for Beau Geste.  In 1967, he finally appeared on screen with George Raft in Five Golden Dragons. 

The role was played on screen by Humphrey Bogart. 

“US Highway 99. A concrete ribbon of commerce, winding its way over the hills from San Francisco to Los Angeles. In the dark hours of the morning, a steady stream of trucks roars along this road, huge six wheeled monsters with their headlights burning into the blackness, their mighty tires pounding the concrete, hour after hour and mile after mile.”

Brothers Joe and Paul Fabrini are independent truck drivers who make a meager living transporting goods. Joe convinces Paul to start their own small, one-truck business, staying one step ahead of loan shark Farnsworth, who is trying to repossess their truck.

At a diner, Joe is attracted to waitress Cassie Hartley. Later, on their way to Los Angeles, the brothers pick up a hitchhiker; Joe is pleased when it turns out to be Cassie, who quit after her boss tried to get a bit too friendly with her. They park at a diner for a meal and chat with a trucker acquaintance, McNamara, who is extremely overworked and tired; later, back on the road, the brothers and Cassie find themselves driving behind McNamara and soon become aware that he must be asleep at the wheel. They put themselves in danger trying to awaken him, but McNamara’s truck goes off the road and explodes in flames.

At his home just outside of Los Angeles, Paul is reunited with his patient though worried wife, Pearl, who would rather have Paul settle down in a safer, more regular job. Paul is troubled about his future, too, but will not leave his brother “out on a limb as long as he thinks we have a chance in this business”. In the city, Joe finds Cassie a place to stay. They talk and begin to establish a relationship.

The next morning, from a window overlooking the market, Joe’s good friend Ed Carlsen, watches Joe get into a brief fist fight. Ed is a trucking business owner and former driver; he calls Joe up to his office and offers him a job. Joe insists on remaining independent. Ed’s wife, Marie Carlsen, has wanted Joe for years but he has always rebuffed her advances.

MARIE: “You’re crude, you’re uneducated, you never had a pair of pants with a crease in ‘em, and yet – I can’t get you off my mind, Joe.”

Ed gives Joe a tip on a load which results in the brothers earning enough money to finally pay off Farnsworth. 

Part Two

On the return trip, Paul falls asleep at the wheel, causing an accident which costs him his right arm and wrecks the truck.

When Ed hires Joe as a driver, Marie persuades her husband to make him the traffic manager instead; she starts dropping by the office frequently. Joe continues to spurn her advances. One night, when Marie drives a drunk, unconscious Ed home from a party, she murders him on impulse, by leaving him in the garage with the car motor still idling. When the police investigate, it appears to be an accident. 

Part Three

She later gives Joe a half-interest as a partner in the business in a subsequent attempt to attract him.

Paul has been bitter over his inability to land a proper job in order to support his wife and plan a family. He returns to work as a dispatcher for Joe. Joe does a fine job managing the business but, when Marie learns he plans to marry Cassie, she becomes so enraged she reveals to him that she killed Ed so that she could have him. She then goes to the police, accusing Joe of forcing her to help commit murder. During the trial, the weight of circumstantial evidence looks bad for Joe, but a guilt-ridden Marie breaks down on the witness stand, laughing hysterically and claiming the electric garage doors made her do it.

After Marie is determined to be insane, the case is dismissed. Joe considers going back to the road, but Cassie, Paul – who happily announces that Pearl and he are having a baby – and the boys manage to convince him otherwise. He thus returns to the trucking business that he had dreamed of owning, with his brother as traffic manager and Cassie as his bride-to-be.

LUPINO-LESS, BALL PINCH HITS

This recreation of the film was supposed to star two of its original stars. Ida Lupino had signed on to play Mrs. Carlsen, but had conflicts with her film work. 

This newspaper item gets a few things wrong. First, the brothers’ last name is Fabrini, not Sambrini.  Also, Lucille Ball plays Marie Carlsen, not Cassie.  This same information is reprinted in other newspapers.  It looks as though Ball was originally cast as Cassie, until Lupino’s departure. 

It turns out that Lupino left the radio show at the last minute (film commitments) and Ball was moved up to her role. The fact reached a few newspapers in time, but not all. 

In the frenzy to re-cast, several Hollywood names were mentioned – and published.  Rita Hayworth for one…

… and Lana Turner!  It is possible that Lupino’s film name ‘Lana’ (changed to Marie for radio) caused the confusion. 

This article doesn’t mention the role Ball will play, possibly to avoid confusion should she not move into Lupino’s role. 

The film version featured background actors Mike Lally and Bess Flowers, Queen of the Extras.  They both did frequent background work on “I Love Lucy.”