MovieChat Forums > They Drive by Night (1940) Discussion > Same plot as Bordertown (1935)

Same plot as Bordertown (1935)

posted 15 years ago by berlin45
6 replies | jump to latest

In Bordertown (1935) Paul Muni has a good-hearted boss who's married to a much younger woman, Bette Davis. She kills her husband just like Ida Lupino gets rid of Alan Hale- by an automatic garage door opener, after a night of drinking, so she can be with the young hot-shot employee. Just like George Raft, Paul Muni isn't interested in his boss' wife, so she tells the police he killed his boss to take over the company! I can't believe how similar the stories are. They Drive By Night wins, even though they copied Bordertown, because of all the heavyweights in the film. Paul Muni and George Raft cancel each other, but then add Humphrey Bogart and TDBN has the advantage. Yes, Bordertown has Bette Davis, but in this kind of role, I think Ida Lupino is better. Bette Davis is meant for better things. And don't forget Alan Hale as the boss, you can see where the skipper of Gilligan's Island got his talent!

[–] duesouth1420 15 years ago

Thank you so much for posting this! I thought the very same thing!

[–] LincolnMarkV 15 years ago

Well, it's not so much that "one copied the other" as it is a re-make. They do it all the time.

"Philadelphia Story" was re-made years later with Grace Kelly (and it's awful), and 1939's "The Women" was just re-made (beyond wretched) and then somebody felt it necessary to re-make "Hairspray." (Yet another colossal flop.)

This is one of the rare cases where the second one was better.

[–] dmnemaine 14 years ago

To add to that ... "The Women" was remade by MGM in 1956 as a musical called "The Opposite Sex" starring June Allyson in the Norma Shearer role. It even added men to the cast.

[–] Tilyou1 13 years ago

> This is one of the rare cases where the second one was better.

The Maltese Falcon is another (in that case, the 3rd time was the charm, although one of its predecessors had a different name "When Satan Was a Lady"). The third time also stuck to the book much more closely than the others, and more closely than most movies do when based on books.

[–] misspaddylee 13 years ago

The story was also re-worked for an episode of Cheyenne. They did that a lot on Cheyenne. Others I recall are takes on To Have and Have Not, Treasue of the Sierra Madre and Along the Great Divide.

"Tell me about the squares, Buzzie."

[–] ben-thayer 10 years ago

Another Cheyenne rework was lifted from Angels With Dirty Faces, specifically the ending.

And the Cheyenne episodes are fun to watch! One user said it was kinda like seeing a major movie, then seeing another version of it in a local playhouse. I see it that way as well.

But in the Cheyenne version of TDBN, the wife allowed her husband to die in a fire. After that she was haunted by just looking at a burning match.

But they dropped the ball by not recreating the famous Ida Lupino breakdown. I was certain they would show someone light a cigar in front of the wife during interrogation which would drive her insane...but they opted not to do it. She just kinda lost it and everyone realized she wasn't sane.