They Drive By Night

Warner Brothers churned out hundreds of 'quota quickies' from their small British studio in Teddington, most of which are no doubt best left in the dustbin of history. Occasionally, though, the fusion of quirky British realism and slick Hollywood melodramatics produced a real gem. Here the revelation of '30s British society as a world of spivs and cardsharps, lecherous lorry drivers and sybaritic sex maniacs, is worth discovering in itself. But director Woods, soon to die in the war, takes the workmanlike story of a petty criminal (Williams) hunted for a murder he didn't do, and invests it with an atmosphere of unrelenting wind, rain and gloom which makes the average American film noir look bright and breezy by comparison.