Purely Joyful Movie!

i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

He Walked by Night is a pretty dull murderer hunt type film, given life only by it's killer. The film being based on facts, that seems rather wrong no? Praising the guy who committed countless crimes and shot cops. All the cops involved had zero character, a guy getting out a cigarette every time he is in a scene is not a replacement for having personality. The face sketching scene was ridiculous and the cops taking forever to try and catch him at his home once they knew where he lived, was pathetic. Without the enigmatic and intriguing characterization of Roy, with which they would not of had that information as he was a loner, there is nothing here. So essentially the only good thing about this movie is mostly made up, might as well have made up the whole thing.

"He Walked By Night" (1948) fully deserves its good reputation as a classic noir, thanks mainly to its chilling performance by Richard Basehart and a great deal of atmospherically low-key location filming in Los Angeles by ace cameraman, John Alton. "He Walked by Night" is also one of Hollywood's rare movies with no romance. Absolutely none at all! In fact, not even a hint of one. It's Mr. Whit Bissell, not some well endowed Hollywood starlet, who shines in the support case. Anthony Mann is reputed to have directed some scenes in this movie, but I have no idea what they were, as it was not an assignment that he claimed in his credits."He Walked by Night" is currently available on an Alpha DVD. I would give this DVD a mark of least eight out of ten.

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.

*Spoiler/plot- He walks the Night, 1948. A clever young criminal uses his electronic knowledge to steal and re-sell home electronic items during the early TV and radio age in Los Angeles. He is ruthless and shoots two police officers that are chasing him. The crook uses the extensive underground flood control system to keep ahead of the police. After a chase and gunfight, he is killed there. *Special Stars- Richard Basehart, Scott Brady, Roy Roberts, Whit Bissell, Jack Webb.*Theme- Good honorable police enforcement often helps justice along the way.*Trivia/location/goofs- B & W, Film noir, Los Angeles. Semi-documentary style with narrator. Mr. Basehart had very little dialog(film voice over narrator did most of the plot exposition) but a lot of acting in this first film for him . The LAPD technical adviser talked to Jack Webb and this project became the basis for the Dragnet radio show which turned into a TV show. *Emotion- Gritty, raw, action packed, 'film noir' stark shadows across the principle characters in scenes, very little flowery dialog and raw semi-documentary shooting style make this film the granddaddy of many latter decades police dramas. The best of these film makes the viewer a participant. If you're a fan of detective film noir(like me), you'll enjoy this movie. Non-fans will find this film full of trivial faults. I did not.