Screenwriters A. I. Bezzerides and Alvah Bessie developed a 26 page treatment of Roger Butterfield's book Al Schmid Marine.
Following her divorce from Richards, Silvia married screenwriter A. I. (Buzz) Bezzerides, himself a victim of the McCarthy-era blacklist.
Fox writers A. I. Bezzerides, John Monks, Jr. and William Perlberg also had uncredited roles in drafting the screenplay, which was finished in September 1948.
The film was based on A. I. Bezzerides' 1938 novel The Long Haul, which was later reprinted under the title They Drive by Night to capitalize on the success of the film.
Among the writers known to have been regular patrons of the Rose shop were William Saroyan, William Faulkner, Nathanael West, Jim Tully, Gene Fowler, James M. Cain, Frank Fenton, Horace McCoy, Erskine Caldwell, John Fante, Louis Adamic, A.I. Bezzerides, Jo Pagano and Budd Schulberg.