Errol Morris contributed program notes for PFA's 1975 John Alton tribute. One can see how the future director of The Thin Blue Line (1988) might well acclaim He Walked by Night as "Truly exceptional! An all-male cast. Richard Basehart plays the psychotic killer mercilessly tracked down by police detectives. Taken (or so the studio claims) from actual police files, the film opens with the brutal murder of a policeman. Location shooting in the relentlessly realistic tradition of T-Men and Canon City is highlighted by the final shoot-out in the L. A. drainage tunnel system (featured later in Them). A gritty masterpiece!" Begun by Werker and completed by Mann, the film has the creative stamp of the Mann-Alton collaboration.