They Drive by Night (1940)

Brothers Joe and Paul Fabrini have their own rig in being independent truckers on the California coast between Los Angeles and San Francisco, although much of the rig still belongs to a loan shark named Farnsworth who is continually chasing after them either for the money owed or to repossess. Besides both seeing the trucking business as their career, Joe and Paul have different viewpoints about their lives. Single Joe, who easily moves from girl to girl - although he could see himself settling down with one in particular, namely Cassie Hartley - sees being independent the better way to get ahead in the business in hustling for the jobs and thus being able to set their own terms. He sees his friend Ed Carlsen as such an example of that success, Ed a former independent trucker who was able to parlay that life into his own multi-rig freight company. However, in this life, they have to deal with unscrupulous distributors, such as Mike Williams, who not only controls who gets what jobs, but how and when they are paid. Williams too is not averse to putting Farnsworth on the Fabrinis' tail just to show them who's the boss. Paul, married to loving and loyal Pearl, is the cautious one, he who would rather work for one of the trucking companies for greater stability in life and so that he