peefyn There are plenty of public domain film noirs, and they all bring something interesting to the table, despite their varying quality. I did not expect this one to be as good a story as it turned out to be - and I am surprised that there has not been made a big budget remake (for better or for worse).One reaction I had while watching it was that the cops in the movie were all quite bland. I figured that this was a flaw in the movie, and that I would hold it against it in this review. But, after some consideration, I realized that this is only a part of the movie's attempt at realism. This is not the tale of a cop acting against all odds, but a team working together to solve a case.Some scenes are quite bad (the discussion during the hospital visit, etc), and some characters (the villain, the witness, etc) are quite caricatured - all of which makes the movie feel more dated than the story itself is. Despite this, the end result is both fun and exciting.

calvinnme He Walked by Night" is a 1948 black-and-white film noir crime drama that was shot in semi-documentary style and inspired one of the film's actors, Jack Webb, to create the radio and later television program Dragnet, which the film clearly resembles. This movie seems to be ahead of its time in several ways. Unlike other crime dramas of the thirties and forties, there is a lack of hammy dialog, no girl with a heart of gold standing behind her man - either criminal or police officer, and no background information given explaining the criminal's motivation, or any of the other plot gimicks that run from the early talkie gangster films into the crime dramas of the post-war era. Also, there is no mystery for the audience to solve, as the actions of the police and the criminal are clearly shown to the audience. The only question is when and how their paths will finally cross.Richard Basehart, who portrays criminal Roy Martin in this film, really owns the movie. He shines as a relentless sociopath whose only tender spot seems to be for his own dog. Because he doesn't associate with known criminals and lives quietly, he is exceptionally hard to track down. Basehart actually has very few lines, but he is great at expressing his state of mind through his gestures and facial expressions. The film's excellent cinematography surrounds Basehart's character with cold, deterministic pools of light and darkness so that he really does seem like some type of shadow of evil that has descended upon the city. The killer in the film was actually based on real-life criminal Erwin Walker. However, wanting to concentrate on both the crime solving techniques involved and the habits of the criminal, this interesting and lengthy backstory was omitted to keep the film tight and fast paced.Erwin Walker was a brilliant student at the California Institute of Technology, a radio dispatcher for the police department in his native Glendale, and something of a hero as a lieutenant in charge of a radar unit on Okinawa during World War II. Walker returned from overseas duty deeply disturbed, and set out on a crime spree of more than a dozen holdups and burglaries to raise money for construction of a "death ray machine" that he thought would somehow make another war impossible. Twice Walker shot his way out of police traps, escaping through the labyrinth of storm drain pipes under Los Angeles and eventually killing a police officer. He was sentenced to death, but was later found to be insane by prison psychiatrists, and his execution was postponed indefinitely. California governor Pat Brown commuted his sentence to life in 1961, and in 1971 Walker was granted a new trial due to his original confession having been found to be coerced. Remarkably, he was acquitted at the second trial, changed his name, married, and took a job as a chemist somewhere in Southern California, never to be heard from publicly again.Thus, just or unjust, the inspiration for this movie had quite a different outcome than the villain in the film. Of course, in 1948, nobody would have dared write such a screenplay and have expected to ever work in Hollywood again.I had always considered Cagney's portrayal of Cody Jarrett in White Heat (1949) to be the first real off-the-wall psycho killer in a major film. But I now think that distinction should probably go to Basehart's portrayal of Erwin Walker in this movie. It's obviously a matter of opinion, but I can't think of a killer this menacing in a film prior to 1948.

chaos-rampant This isn't real noir by my definition which is ruled by hallucinative memory, seduction and amused fate. But others define noir as a style, in which case this does have the shadows. It's from that genealogy of noir with roots in westerns and gangster movies with its purer landscape, crisper asphalt and desert god. Viewers who want simple and efficient world mechanics will find this to their taste, no frills here.Supposedly it's just the facts. But if you look at the cinematic facts of the movie?An omniscient Filekeeper narrates. None of the cops is distinguishable as a distinct human being. And no one does anything that doesn't serve the narrated facts on file.. Crushing.It isn't alone that times have changed, though we have since seen this template countless times on TV. It isn't even that the film is populated by simple folks, mostly cops, or the case is exceedingly simple, which it is. The Naked City of the same year takes a similar 'factual' approach but doesn't feel so stolid. It may altogether be that we're hardwired to much faster thinking and simultaneously a more nuanced 'real' behavior. It probably just comes down to stiff acting and script.I was amused by a scene where the police commissioner has gathered all the witnesses in a room to help profile a picture of the suspect. Needless to say the sketched picture turns out exactly like the guy we're looking for. But watch the witnesses as they fill in the details from memory, the cadence, the observations, the clean delivery. It's like you've gone into a bar where everyone has been told to pretend that he's in a bar.Still, remarkable LA. In spite of everything, I might include it in my Los Angeles project.Noir Meter: 1/4

sol1218 ***SPOILERS*** Semidocumentary style Film Nior classic that's a lot like the film "Street with no Name" released in the same year. "He Walked by Night" is based on the real life crimes of former L.A police department employee and WWII vet Erwin "Mechine-Gun" Walker who terrorized the city in the mid 1940's with a string of shootings and armed robberies. Roy Martin, Richard Besehart, has been burglarizing electrical appliances stores in L.A and pretending that what he stole he in fact invented. Martin makes a living, and a damn good one at that, by selling his stolen booty to his fence-man, who in fact doesn't known it's stolen property, electronic dealer Paul Reeves, Whit Bissell.It's when Martin is spotted by an LAPD cop one night hanging around an electronic store and looking like he's up to no good that he gunned him down thus going up the ladder in the world of crime from just a plain garden variety burglar to a wanted all points, in the state, cop killer! With every cop in the LAPD out looking for him Martin is able to avoid them in slipping into the vast 700 mile L.A sewer system thus preventing him from being captured. Despite all the precautions he takes Martin makes the mistake of going back to his "Fence-Man" Paul Reeves to make sure, by bashing his skull in and cracking a couple of his ribs, that he doesn't turn him into the police. That tips the cops on the case Sgt. Marty Brennan, Scott Brady,& Sgt. Chuck Jones,James Cardwell, off to Martin's identity. That's not after Jones ended up being brutally attacked and beaten by Martin when he spotted him and his partner Sgt. Brennan hiding out in Reeves' office.***SPOILERS*** With his cover blown thanks to the US Post Office in tracking him down in this out of the way L.A bungalow colony Martin is now not only on the run but has his secret hideout, the sewer system, found out as well. Like a cornered rat having nowhere to go with his escape route, a manhole cover, blocked by an LAPD patrol car all he can do now is shoot it out with the oncoming police that in Martin's case turns out to be fatal.The sewer system scenes in the movie were later used, in 1956, in the Lon Cheney Jr horror suspense movie "Indestrutable Man" where he played the just brought back from the dead, through a massive electronic jolt, zombie-like mass murderer Butcher Benton. The movie "He Walked by Night" also has a 27 year old Jack Webb playing police forensic specialist Lee Whitey. Webb became so interested in police work during the filming that with the support of LAPD cop Sgt. Marty Wynn, who served as a police technical adviser in the film, he came up with the idea for his blockbuster radio and later TV police drama series "Dragnet".