Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

thursdaysrecords This is more than just a formula crime drama, but clearly the blue print for the long running TV Police Drama "Dragnet". Focusing on the enormous law enforcement system in the most populated city in the USA, audiences get a peak into the (then) innovative techniques of solving violent crime. The villain here is a loner with an affinity for electronics, a field still in its early stage. A large TV set (in 1948) is still somewhat of a novelty that wasn't necessarily manufactured, but rather "built" by an expert. To create a phantom drawing of the criminal, an overlay slide projector is used to replace the sketch artist. For a post WWII audience, all of these methods border on science fiction. - With the cooperation of many victims, clues are collected to identify and catch the bad guy. - As this film was produced in the middle of the "Hayes Code Era", no one needed to worry about the outcome. In those days it was understood that crime doesn't pay, and anyone who repeatedly murdered in cold blood, will be brought to justice, one way or another...usually the most obvious way. - An above average entry in the 1940s Film Noire Genre, but certainly unique in the innovative story telling a la Jack Webb.

mark.waltz Atmospheric and detailed in every way, shape and form, this is what tension is all about. Cop killings are a serious matter, and nearly 70 years later, this film still hits raw nerves. After the titles dedication to the world of law enforcement is followed by stock footage narration that takes you to downtown Los Angeles where calls come in one after another that the narrator describes as a city gone mad. Corrupt or not, the police force has a job to do, and when real criminals are taken off the streets of any big city, it is something to celebrate. There are moments of silence here that in some films indicates that nothing is going on, but here, something is always happening. Richard Basehart gives a truly creepy performance as a cop killer who kills the officer simply asking him where he is going in total cold blood. Witnesses surface who saw the fleeing Basehart are gathered together where little descriptions provide enough of a picture of who they are looking for. Los Angeles streets turn sinister as the killer leads the police force (among them Scott Brady and Jack Ebb) on a not so merry chase.If you like tight camera work that really goes into the structure of the new wave, then this is a great example of how film noir and crime dramas, whether on the big screen or the then new invention of television. It's a chase not only between cop and criminal, but camera and cast, turning precincts, streets, sewers and various other types of locations into characters. The end of the war gave filmmakers new tricks to try, and this one succeeded in abundance.

SimonJack "He Walked by Night" is a crime-mystery film in the style of a police drama that would later be used in long-running TV series such as "Dragnet" in the 1950s and many more that followed. This film is about a specific true case from the Los Angeles PD files. It proved to be a particularly intriguing one, and hard to crack. For that reason, it keeps one's interest up. We all know who the killer is – that's not a secret to the viewers. But we don't know if, when and how the police will discover who he is, and how if he will come to justice. I remember watching the first "Dragnet" series on TV growing up in the 1950s. Detective Sergeant Joe Friday was known to most Americans far away from LA. It's interesting that the star of that long-running series – and its return to TV a few years later for another four-year run, is in this film. Jack Webb here plays Lee Whitey, the head of the police forensics lab. I think he actually has a more lively character in this film than he played as the matter-of-fact, seemingly droll Sgt. Joe Friday in "Dragnet."This film is entertaining as a crime and police pursuit film. Otherwise, the acting is just so-so and the technical production is average at best.

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".