My father had certain movies that he liked to refer to with real or imagined quotes. MILDRED PIERCE was one ("Vita you slut!", he'd say as though it was said by Joan Crawford). But another one was the statement "The doors made me do it! The doors made me do it!". He was actually quoting (correctly, as it turns out) Ida Lupino in her climactic courtroom moment in THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT.
I just have discussed the actual original version of this plot - BORDERTOWN (1935) with Paul Muni (awful), Bette Davis (fine), and Margaret Lindsay (above competent) in a romantic triangle, where (oddly enough) both women seriously lose out (Bette losing her mind, and Margaret her life). The films of all the studios had a habit of being reused if necessary. GRAND HOTEL became WEEKEND AT THE WALDORF. GUNGA DIN became SOLDIERS THREE. But usually a decade or more passed before such reuse occurred. Not so here - only five years.
Yet there are improvements. Muni's hammy performance as incompetent, overwrought Latino Johnny Rodriguez (certainly among his worst performances) was thrown out. All the characters in this film are Americans (except George Tobias as George Rondolos, but at least he sounds normal). The roadhouse story is dropped: now we are dealing with trucking, and actually this is a plus. Few of us run fancy roadhouse gambling establishments, but most have regular jobs like driving trucks. The screenwriters noted the problems of independent truckers, such as money lenders like Charles Halton (a nice wormy performance) who drain them dry. There are so many of these guys around they are cutting each other's economic throats. Both George Raft and his brother Humphrey Bogart (one of their two films together - the other is INVISIBLE STRIPES) do have their friends on the road (their is a tragic side plot about the death of their friend John Litel who falls asleep driving a truck for too many hours), but they have to fight for every cargo they can get.
Raft is able to tie up with trucking concern of Alan Hale Sr., and things improve for him and Bogart (who has lost an arm in a trucking accident). But like Bette Davis in BORDERTOWN, Ida Lupino takes a hankering for Raft, and does in her husband Hale using the same method (the closed garage with the car motor still running). The only difference is that the doors are electric doors (did they pick that trick from Stan and Ollie's misadventure with an electric garage door in BLOCKHEADS (1938)). When Ida turns on George after he rejects her advances, and tries to ensnare him as a co-conspirator, her mind collapses on the stand, and she starts screaming about the doors! No problem of Raft losing all sexual fulfillment here like Muni did - Ann Sheridan is available to take up with him now. No, this is a far more satisfying film than BORDERTOWN, but still (despite a grand Warner Brothers cast) it is a minor film for all that.
I just have discussed the actual original version of this plot - BORDERTOWN (1935) with Paul Muni (awful), Bette Davis (fine), and Margaret Lindsay (above competent) in a romantic triangle, where (oddly enough) both women seriously lose out (Bette losing her mind, and Margaret her life). The films of all the studios had a habit of being reused if necessary. GRAND HOTEL became WEEKEND AT THE WALDORF. GUNGA DIN became SOLDIERS THREE. But usually a decade or more passed before such reuse occurred. Not so here - only five years.
Yet there are improvements. Muni's hammy performance as incompetent, overwrought Latino Johnny Rodriguez (certainly among his worst performances) was thrown out. All the characters in this film are Americans (except George Tobias as George Rondolos, but at least he sounds normal). The roadhouse story is dropped: now we are dealing with trucking, and actually this is a plus. Few of us run fancy roadhouse gambling establishments, but most have regular jobs like driving trucks. The screenwriters noted the problems of independent truckers, such as money lenders like Charles Halton (a nice wormy performance) who drain them dry. There are so many of these guys around they are cutting each other's economic throats. Both George Raft and his brother Humphrey Bogart (one of their two films together - the other is INVISIBLE STRIPES) do have their friends on the road (their is a tragic side plot about the death of their friend John Litel who falls asleep driving a truck for too many hours), but they have to fight for every cargo they can get.
Raft is able to tie up with trucking concern of Alan Hale Sr., and things improve for him and Bogart (who has lost an arm in a trucking accident). But like Bette Davis in BORDERTOWN, Ida Lupino takes a hankering for Raft, and does in her husband Hale using the same method (the closed garage with the car motor still running). The only difference is that the doors are electric doors (did they pick that trick from Stan and Ollie's misadventure with an electric garage door in BLOCKHEADS (1938)). When Ida turns on George after he rejects her advances, and tries to ensnare him as a co-conspirator, her mind collapses on the stand, and she starts screaming about the doors! No problem of Raft losing all sexual fulfillment here like Muni did - Ann Sheridan is available to take up with him now. No, this is a far more satisfying film than BORDERTOWN, but still (despite a grand Warner Brothers cast) it is a minor film for all that.