1948: He Walked By Night

He Walked By Night (Anthony Mann, 1948) 8/10


Alongside Agnes Moorehead, Richard Basehart is often cited as one of the greatest American actors never to be have made it to superstar status. With his icy disposition and classical training, the intelligent and dignified Basehart was perhaps too good for Hollywood. In his European period, Basehart was sought after by John Huston for the part of Ishmael in Moby Dick, by HUAC blacklistee Joseph Losey in Finger of Guilt and by an emerging Federico Fellini in both Il Bidone and most famously as The Fool in La Strada.

Yet in Hollywood, Basehart’s career bounced around town: garnering roles in war films such as Anton Litvak’s Decision Before Dawn and Samuel Fuller’s Fixed Bayonets, the odd Jean Negulesco epic (Titanic) and a pair of early Anthony Mann films, Reign of Terror and He Walked By Night. The latter film featured Basehart in a star-making performance as a quiet, sociopath electronics expert: signalling the emergence of one of Hollywood’s most understated talents, yet also defining Basehart’s career as an actor adept at playing psychological roles.

Davis Morgan (Richard Basehart) is a taciturn figure. In his cramped second-floor apartment Morgan spends his days with his dog; only leaving to sell his latest electronic invention to Paul Reeves (Whit Bissel) at his laboratory and rental outlet. Or at least that is what Reeves believes. Unbeknownst to him Morgan is a scrupulous thief wanted for the murder of a cop during a botched night-raid on an electronics store.

Silently financed by Joe Breen (the head of the Production Code's Hays Office) and inspired the true story of WWII veteran Erwin Walker, He Walked By Night is a gripping low-budget account of the police’s attempt to track down Morgan. Signed by Alfred Werker, but directed by an uncredited Anthony Mann, the film represents the post-war shift in American Noir from the corrupt individuals of the early 1940’s to the semi-documentary police procedurals of the late Forties through to the early Fifties. While Noir focuses on the darkness within human nature, the police procedural is a sub-Noir field that examines the methodology and approaches used by the state to protect ordinary citizens from impropriety. Despite its Noirish lighting and cinematography, one could argue that He Walked By Night falls under the banner of the “procedural” for its emphasis on the interlocking mechanics of crime, crime-fighting and deterrence.

As a police procedural, He Walked By Night establishes the institution of the police department as one representing values of progress, security and community co-operation. Although there are outbursts of tension in He Walked By Night from police officials, they are not equated with the private malfeasance with figures found in textbook Noir films. The semi-documentary approach utilised in this film is thus crucial in emphasising this difference. The audience are shown the instruments of deterrence and the tools utilised in the war against crime (radios, face recognition equipment and so forth) in order to show the cutting-edge nature of contemporary police work.

Yet, at the same time we are also shown the abuse of these techniques in Morgan’s meticulous approach to thwarting the law. Hidden in his garage are police radios, various license plates, false identification cards and cleaning equipment, while stored in the network of sewers under the streets of Los Angeles are more weapons and supplies to aid his cause. Morgan’s resourcefulness and utility is stressed in the film as a rarity: the product of specialised training and a threat to society. Morgan’s shifting modus operandi and proficiency in multiple fields of crime stress the further problematic nature of combating his strategies. Yet as the film proposes intra-department networking along with modern technology and public assistance can readily defeat threats to the well-being of ordinary citizens.

At the forefront of this movement was director Anthony Mann. Although better known today for his contextually violent and visually inspiring westerns, Mann is an often forgotten figure in the development of the police procedural. Before his iconic series of westerns with James Stewart, Mann was a director of romantic-comedies who shifted into the crime genre: filming a slew of Noirs such as Railroaded, Raw Deal and T-Men, as well as 1949’s trans-national police procedural Border Incident. Thus, by the time an uncredited Mann directed He Walked By Night, he had already collected a wealth of knowledge regarding the genre’s visual and moral codes, as well as building working relationships with several crew members such as cameraman John Alton who would be influential in the appearance of Mann’s later “police procedural” films.

Alton shoots the film in stunning fashion: blending Noir’s penchant for peculiar angles, Venetian blinds, wet pavements, sharp contrasting light and shadows. Using Mann’s ability to capture the fullness of space, He Walked By Night becomes a rare Noir-influenced picture which does not always rely on cramped quarters to maximise the sensation of the protagonist caught in a grandiose trap. The scene in which Morgan secretly visits Reeves' office with its cathedral ceilings and large doors is especially revealing: emphasising the physical space for Morgan to manoeuvre, yet demonstrating his inability to do so. Alton’s use of deep focus photography is particularly stunning in the film’s final chase through the Los Angeles sewer system: further exercising the falseness of space, while predating a similar sequence in Carol Reed’s The Third Man.

Mann’s film precedes later attempts at this concept such as Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low in showing the detailed dexterity of a master criminal. With its remarkable lead-performance from Richard Basehart, fantastic cinematography by John Alton and fluid direction by Anthony Mann, He Walked By Night overcomes the limitations of its thin script and maturates into an enthralling account of individual genius versus public cooperation.

* He Walked By Night is released through MGM Home Video

Other Anthony Mann Films Reviewed:
Man Of The West (1958) 7/10

Copyright 2007 8½ Cinematheque