Day: June 27, 2012

DVD: www.amazon.com thefilmarchived.blogspot.com He Walked by Night (1948) is a black-and-white police procedural film noir, crediting Alfred L. Werker as director. The film, shot in semidocumentary tone, was allegedly based on the real-life actions of Erwin “Machine-Gun” Walker. During production, one of the actors, Jack Webb, struck up a friendship with the police technical advisor, Detective Sergeant Marty Wynn, and was inspired by a conversation with Wynn to create the radio and later television program Dragnet. He Walked by Night was released by Eagle-Lion Films and is notable for the camera work by renowned noir cinematographer John Alton. Today the film is in public domain. On a Los Angeles street, Officer Hollis, a patrolman on his way home from work, stops a man he suspects of being a burglar and is shot and mortally wounded. The minor clues lead nowhere. Two police detectives, Sergeants Marty Brennan (Brady) and Chuck Jones (Cardwell), are assigned to catch the killer, Roy Morgan (Basehart), a brilliant mystery man with no known criminal past, who is hiding in a Hollywood bungalow and listening to police calls on his custom radio in an attempt to avoid capture. His only relationship is with his little dog. Roy consigns burgled electronic equipment to Paul Reeves (Whit Bissell), and on his fifth sale is nearly caught when he shows up to collect on his property. Reeves tells police that the suspect is a mystery man named Roy Martin. The case crosses the paths of …