He Walked By Night - FREE MOVIE - HD REMASTERED COLOR - Film Noir

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IMPORTANT NOTE: This is a creatively edited remaster of the original film, it has been colorized, upscaled, tone graded, denoised and image sharpened by AFLIX using proprietary technologies and software systems, therefore AFLIX holds all intellectual property over this version. Consequently, it cannot be shared, copied or distributed without ALFIX agreement and permission.

He Walked by Night is a 1948 American police procedural film noir directed by Alfred L. Werker and an uncredited Anthony Mann The film, shot in semidocumentary tone, is loosely based on the real-life actions of Erwin "Machine-Gun" Walker, a former Glendale, California police department employee and World War II veteran who unleashed a crime spree of burglaries, robberies and shootouts in the Los Angeles area in 1945 and 1946.

During production, actor Jack Webb met the film's police technical advisor Marty Wynn and was inspired by a conversation with Wynn to create the radio program Dragnet, which later became a television series.

The film is notable for its camerawork by renowned film noir cinematographer John Alton.

Plot
On a Los Angeles street, Officer Rawlins, a patrolman on his way home from work, stops a man whom he suspects of being a burglar and is shot and mortally wounded. The minor clues lead nowhere. Two police detectives, Marty Brennan and Chuck Jones, are assigned to catch the killer, Roy Morgan, a brilliant mystery man with no known criminal past. Morgan 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 small dog.

Roy consigns stolen electronic equipment to Paul Reeves and is nearly caught when he tries to collect on his property. Reeves tells police that the suspect is a mystery man named Roy Martin. The case crosses the paths of Brennan and Jones, who stake out Reeves's office to arrest and question Roy. However, Roy suspects a trap, and in a brief shootout, he shoots and paralyzes Jones. Jones wounds Roy, who performs surgery on himself to remove the bullet and to avoid the hospital, where his wound would be reported to the police. With his knowledge of police procedures, Roy changes his modus operandi and becomes an armed robber. During one robbery, he fires his semiautomatic pistol and the police recover the ejected casing. Forensics specialist Lee Whitey matches the ejector marks on the casing to those recovered in the killing of Rawlins and the wounding of Jones, connecting all three shootings to one suspect.

Captain Breen uses the break in the case to gather all of the witnesses to the robberies. They assist Lee in building a composite sketch of the killer. Reeves then identifies Roy from the composite. However, Roy hides in Reeves's car and attempts to intimidate him into revealing details of the police investigation. He barely eludes a stakeout of Reeves's house.

Because the police do not realize that Roy has inside knowledge of their work, the case goes nowhere, and Breen removes Brennan from the case. Jones convinces his partner to stop viewing the case personally. Brennan uses the composite photograph, which results in information that Roy, whose actual name is Roy Morgan, worked for a local police department as a civilian radio technician before he was drafted into the army. Brennan finds Roy with the help of mailmen and disguises himself as a milkman to sneak a close look at Roy and his apartment.

The police surround and raid the apartment that night, but Roy, alerted by his dog's barking, flees through the attic and uses the Los Angeles storm-drainage tunnel system as a means of escape. A dragnet and a chase through the drainage tunnels ensue. Roy is finally cornered by the police in a passage when his exit is blocked by the wheel of a police car atop a manhole cover. As police tear gas affects Roy, he staggers and fires one last time at them. He is then shot and killed.

Cast
Richard Basehart as Roy Martin/Roy Morgan
Scott Brady as Sgt. Marty Brennan
Roy Roberts as Captain Breen
Whit Bissell as Paul Reeves, electronics dealer
James Cardwell as Sgt. Chuck Jones
Jack Webb as Lee Whitey
Byron Foulger as Freddie (uncredited)
John Dehner as Assistant Bureau Chief (uncredited)
Kenneth Tobey as Detective (uncredited)
John McGuire as Officer Robert Rawlins (uncredited)
Reed Hadley as Narrator
Dorothy Adams as Paranoid Housewife (uncredited)