Until the above line was muttered by a cop to Mrs. Johnson, a liquor store owner, I hadn't considered this film to be a murder mystery. Yes, Officer Rawlins died some time after being shot by Morgan/Martin (Richard Basehart), and there was that hit on Detective Chuck Jones (James Cardwell), but he lived, and it didn't seem to me that murder was the focus of the story. It had more to do it seems, with the cunning displayed by Basehart's character in pulling off small time burglaries, then graduating to armed robbery, all the while leaving no clues and eluding authority's attempt to track him down.
Nor does the film completely fill the noir definition with it's lack of a slick and dangerous femme-fatale. What it does have though for fans of these Forties era flicks, is Jack Webb in a nice warm-up for his radio and TV 'Dragnet' series, filling the role of a forensics cop who provides the first lead to Roy Martin's real identity. The neatest twist of the whole story, for me at least, was watching Martin maneuver his way around the underground LA sewer system, and pull a rifle out of a carefully selected hiding spot! Now there was a guy who did his homework.
"He Walked by Night" is one of those ubiquitous public domain titles you'll find packaged by itself or in compilations of a hundred pictures or more. It's a bit slow in spots but generally manages to hold interest and entertain in a satisfactory way. Scott Brady fans will get a kick seeing him here at the tender age of twenty four but looking considerably older. A year later, he would travel cross country as a customs agent to go up against Yul Brynner in 1949's "Port of New York".
Nor does the film completely fill the noir definition with it's lack of a slick and dangerous femme-fatale. What it does have though for fans of these Forties era flicks, is Jack Webb in a nice warm-up for his radio and TV 'Dragnet' series, filling the role of a forensics cop who provides the first lead to Roy Martin's real identity. The neatest twist of the whole story, for me at least, was watching Martin maneuver his way around the underground LA sewer system, and pull a rifle out of a carefully selected hiding spot! Now there was a guy who did his homework.
"He Walked by Night" is one of those ubiquitous public domain titles you'll find packaged by itself or in compilations of a hundred pictures or more. It's a bit slow in spots but generally manages to hold interest and entertain in a satisfactory way. Scott Brady fans will get a kick seeing him here at the tender age of twenty four but looking considerably older. A year later, he would travel cross country as a customs agent to go up against Yul Brynner in 1949's "Port of New York".