Don't believe the title: he ran, he didn't walk. The “he” is Richard Basehart playing an icy master criminal whose one mistake is waxing a cop. With an officer down, the LAPD swings into action, rounding up suspects and clues in a forensic frenzy. The procedural manner of this classic noir would influence Jack Webb, here the lab technician but soon to be Dragnet's man Friday. Pushing hack Werker aside, Mann teamed with Alton to engineer a fact-based story steeped in mood and menace. The much-tramped-on city is an implacable maze lacerated by harsh grids of light, leading inevitably to a desperate end in the storm drains below.