They Drive by Night

Not to be confused with either Nicholas Ray's melancholic 1949 crime tale They Live by Night or Raoul Walsh's 1940 action-melodrama (which borrowed only its title), this British thriller concerns one flawed man's attempts at clearing his name. They Drive by Night stars Emlyn Williams as Shorty, a ...more

Arthur B. Woods' They Drive By Night -- not to be confused with Raoul Walsh's Hollywood movie of the same name, co-starring George Raft and Humphrey Bogart, from two years later -- was one of the finest British thrillers of the late 1930's. Woods, regarded as one of England's best young directors, turned in a Hitchcock-like tour-de-force, with Emlyn Williams and Ernest Thesiger leading us through a plot littered with odd twists and turns -- elements of which anticipate both I Wake Up Screaming ...more