He Walked by Night

A burglar who listens in on police radio to stay a step ahead of the law shoots a Los Angeles officer and becomes the target of a citywide manhunt. The film follows the police investigation step by step, the forensics, the informants, the dead ends, and the final chase through the storm drains under the city. It is loosely based on the real crime spree of Erwin "Machine-Gun" Walker, a former police department employee who terrorized Los Angeles in 1946. Richard Basehart is cold and precise as the killer, and John Alton's cinematography turns the night streets and the underground tunnels into something close to a nightmare. The film is also the unlikely origin of Dragnet: Jack Webb met the production's police technical advisor on set, and that conversation led him to create the radio show. The film entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.