Book vs. Movie: They Drive by Night (1940)

Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino might seem like natural co-stars, but over the course of their careers, they only starred in two movies together. (Or three, if you include the cameo-laden Thank Your Lucky Stars.) The first of those movies, They Drive by Night, was released in August of 1940. But before They Drive by Night hit the silver screen, it was published as a book under the name Long Haul, written by A.I. Bezzerides.

Book & Movie Differences

For this year’s summer reading challenge, I chose my books to do a theme of stories about crime stories gangsters. It turns out that They Drive By Night wasn’t the best choice of books to start a series like this off with because it’s in the same league as Mildred Pierce, in the sense that both movies prominently feature murders that don’t exist in the novels they were based on.

The film version of They Drive by Night begins by staying fairly close to the source material, with only some minor changes that don’t really make much of a difference in the long run. For example, in the book, the character of Cassie wasn’t a waitress they met before seeing her hitchhiking. Also, the two main characters were named Nick and Paul Benay in the book, but their names were changed to Joe and Paul Fabrini for the movie (respectively played by George Raft and Humphrey Bogart.) And in the book, the brothers’ truck is destroyed by an encounter with a drunk driver, not by Paul falling asleep at the wheel.

While Ida Lupino’s performance is a real highlight of They Drive By Night, since is there no murder in the book version of They Drive by Night, the character she plays does not exist in the book version, either. The film They Drive by Night less a straight adaptation of the novel and more of a mashup between the novel and the plot of 1935’s Bordertown and Ida Lupino’s character is clearly based on the Bette Davis character from Bordertown.

Aside from the murder, the movie also ends on a significantly more optimistic note than the book does. The novel in general is really pretty bleak and is more about how difficult it is for people to get ahead in an industry that is ultimately stacked against them. The brothers are always struggling to get a leg up in the trucking industry, but a lack of effort isn’t the problem. They’re stuck in a cycle of dealing with setbacks that prevent them from really getting anywhere, even after any successes they do experience. I hesitate to mention what, exactly, makes the ending of the book so bleak in case anyone wants to read it for themselves.

Is the Book Worth Reading?

If you’re specifically looking for a crime story to read, then Long Haul obviously isn’t going to be what you had in mind. However, if you tend to like the novels that film noir movies were based on, you could still appreciate Long Haul. While the story itself isn’t particularly noir-ish, it still has the hardened edge and cynical worldview that you might expect from other books that inspired film noir movie adaptations. Not an uplifting read by any means, but it was still worth my time to read it.

This review is part of the 2023 Classic Film Summer Reading Challenge hosted by Out of the Past. For more reviews on books related to classic film, be sure to follow the #ClassicFilmReading hashtag on social media.