They Drive by Night

Just out of prison, Shorty Matthews goes to see his girlfriend in London and finds her murdered. Realising the crime will be pinned on him, he runs and disappears among the long distance lorry drivers, hiding on the roads, in garages and in roadside cafés. Meanwhile the real killer, an unremarkable former schoolmaster named Walter Hoover, goes on killing women in London. When Shorty is named the chief suspect, as he had feared, he returns to the city with his old friend Molly to prove his innocence. Arthur B. Woods’s eighty four minute British film was adapted from James Curtis’s novel of the same year; Emlyn Williams plays Shorty and Ernest Thesiger plays Hoover. It was shot at Warner Bros.’ Teddington studio and opened on 1 December 1938.