Walsh's atmospheric, realistic depiction of the long haul to livelihood in the Great Depression features Humphrey Bogart and George Raft as two brothers keeping just this side of the white line, trying to save an independent trucking business from the hands of creditors. Paid by the load, they watch helplessly as their less hardy comrades succumb to sleep and crash. Like the great American road movie it is, They Drive by Night draws us right along on the trek. Lupino enters the scene as the wealthy, neurotic wife of a trucking-company owner with whom Raft takes a job, and dominates the rest of the film. If the best thing about They Drive by Night is the gripping social-realism of the first half, certainly the second best thing is Lupino going berserk on the witness stand at the end. In his autobiography, Walsh wrote, "...pretty, talented Ida Lupino walked off with the picture..."