He Walked By Night

Minor but taut thriller in the semi-documentary vein so popular in the second half of the '40s, about detectives tracking down thief-turned-cop killer Basehart (and making much play with the new Identikit methods). The fact that Anthony Mann had an uncredited hand in the direction may have something to do with the successful creation of a tense atmosphere, although most notable is the superb noir photography by John Alton, who really comes into his own during the final chase through the LA sewers. Basehart is excellent as the strange, lone wolf electronics expert/killer, an enigmatic threat haunting the paranoid dreams of the witch-hunting era.