They Drive By Night (1940)
It’s two movies in one. The first is a thriller for men; the second, a melodrama for women. But women dominate throughout, and They Drive By Night presents bold arguments both for and against ‘#me too.’ George Raft and Humphrey Bogart drive trucks all through the night, and the only way to make money is to keep driving even if you get sleepy behind the wheel. The film treats us to one horrifying accident, and all we can think about is, will Raft — or his brother Bogart — die like that? Well Bogart does fall asleep while driving, and he loses an arm. But throughout the first half of They Drive by Night Ann Sheridan dominates. She’s always was kinda tough, but here — as hash-slinger Cassie — she wields the feminine wisecrack like a knife. When a rude diner admires her ‘classy chassis’ she quips: “you couldn’t pay for the headlights” and when another says “I ain’t got a wife,” she says “that’s not hard to understand.” How do women survive an environment when every man is an octopus and a little morning objectification is as common as coffee? (Sheridan finally quits her job because her boss tries to tie her apron — “except I wasn’t wearing one.” ) But Sheridan falls for George Raft, and suddenly The Drive by Night is uncommonly moving. He buys her a room for the night. She asks him to leave: “Nice guys always leave when ladies ask them to.” But he doesn’t leave, he falls asleep; so she puts him to bed and she sleeps in a chair. It still kinda breaks the ‘#metoo’ rules but she’s in love with him, so who cares — suddenly a little objectification is a very fine thing. (I go on about how heterosexuality irritates me — but I’m really on your side guys — believe it or not; I want you straights to pull through despite the impossibility of your project!) Anyway that’s the first half of They Drive By Night; the second half is all about women, but tailor made for homosexuals, with the campiest moment in film history; you haven’t really lived until you’ve seen Ida Lupino go mad. She’s a fabulous actress, and went on to become a successful director. Lupino only appears a half an hour into the film — as a truck mogul Alan Hale’s girlfriend — but right away she’s sassy as hell, and wearing wearing two dead foxes at one point, and a sequinned hat with a satin dress at another. She’s got her eye on George Raft, and nothing will stop her. She kills her husband; but how she kills her him is a riot. The automatic garage door was intend in 1926, but it must not have been perfected until later, which would explain why it dominates the plot of They Drive By Night. Anyway, Hale (Lupino’s rich idiot husband) is so delighted with the new technology he shows it off at his party. After a post-party drive, Lupino has had it with Hale and wants George Raft instead, so she decides to do away with her husband. When he’s dead drunk she turns on the car ignition. At that point she must only walk past the ‘seeing eye’ and the garage doors shut. Cut. She’s crying pitifully for the district attorney pretending it was all an accident — then she walks straight into the camera with a wry smile. When she tries to frame George Raft for the murder things get really juicy. On the witness stand she loses her mind with a stupefying extremity of emotion that is not to be missed. The scene calls for an operatic breakdown, and Lupino was not one to let such histrionics intimidate her. Seemingly make-up-less and hysterical, her hands combing through her gorgeously disheveled hair, she builds to nutty unhinged, climax, wide-eyed, laughing/crying, pulling out all the stops:“The doors made me do it! It was the doors! The seeing eye doors! They made me —” etc. etc. Perhaps it is the understatement of the century when the defense attorney says: “Your honour I move that this case be dismissed on the ground that the the sole valid eyewitness to the alleged crime is obviously insane.” The newspaper reporters scream: “Doctor Says She’s Daffy!” And George Raft ends up with the wisecracking Ann Sheridan. All is well. The nice women get their way, they want their men home — Bogart has no choice due to his missing arm — and Raft stays off the road, appropriating mad Ida Lupino’s truck business. Perhaps women should run the world, except when they are Ida Lupino. Why do gay men love crazy women so much? I’m not entirely sure if it’s any of your business — which has been a major issue in my life. When I wrote my first novel (Guilty, 1997) I defined ‘bears’ and bear customs; some gay men didn’t like it that I spilled our secrets. It’s not a matter of sabotaging gay culture; frankly I think the looming dissolution of ‘camp’ is a threat that has been greatly exaggerated. We will eternally love/hate our own culture. And the voice of the madwoman is the loudest woman’s voice in a sexist room; the vulnerability and sensitivity that has been forced on her has finally driven her batty. Lupino plays a desiring woman with an oaf of a husband who she plays as long as she can. But we still live in a world where the only way a woman can get truly, deeply rich is to marry some goof, filthy with shekels. So one might finally get tired of that numskull and, sadly, decide to off him. If this is not every woman’s reality it is certainly many women’s fantasy. Good for her I say. Everything Ida Lupino does is in this movie says I'm not nice and I'm not going to take it anyore!. As much as I loved seeing George Raft and Ann Sheridan fall in love, —once they do, Sheridan is no longer interesting. She’s bought the housewife Kool-aid. Why do I love crazy women? Perhaps it’s because I’m a crazy woman, and never have I felt crazier than now, when the headlines today shriek that Public Health has decided — yes, are you sitting down? — that touching surfaces — and/or strangers — is not actually liable to transmit COVID-19. So why have we been insanely sanitizing surfaces and avoiding crowds? The Premier of Ontario (Fatty Ford) has just told us that we are allowed to hug our families. How crazy is it that the government must give us this permission? Am I crazy, or is Ford? The wackiest thing of all though, is that I’ve never really cared whether you, dear reader, have ever liked me. I can’t do without you, but I know that your scorn is just as addicting — for both of us — as is your pleasure.
