He Walked By Night (1948)
There’s one noteworthy scene in He Walked by Night, which is otherwise a mediocre noir: the bullet extraction scene. Predating No Country for Old Men by almost 60 years, Richard Basehart took a bullet out of his own stomach with nothing but boiling water and crude tools. Only, he didn’t win an Oscar for it, and no one even remembers he did it. If you were really impressed by Javier Bardem’s portrayed of a cold-blooded killer who removes a bullet wound from his leg, you might want to give Richard Basehart his chance to impress you, too.
The style of this movie is told like a documentary, with a running narration of a monotoned, anonymous policeman telling the story without emotions, metaphors, or any other fictitious elements. We know who the villain is, but we don’t know why he is so evil, because there is no character development. This is just a simple telling of how the police try to catch a killer and how the killer repeatedly gets away. Richard’s character is pretty ingenious at times, like when he escapes from a car chase by rolling across the road and shimmying under the street drainage so he can gain access to the underground system. He’s also very cold and chilling, and it makes you wonder why he took such lousy roles so early in his career. I first saw him in Fourteen Hours, and it’s impossible to imagine the emotional young boy playing a villain. But to see him in a completely different light, check out this obscure noir.
Want to watch it? Click here to see it on ok.ru and thanks "Classic Movies Kristine Rose" for posting!
More Richard Basehart movies here!
More Whit Bissell movies here!
The style of this movie is told like a documentary, with a running narration of a monotoned, anonymous policeman telling the story without emotions, metaphors, or any other fictitious elements. We know who the villain is, but we don’t know why he is so evil, because there is no character development. This is just a simple telling of how the police try to catch a killer and how the killer repeatedly gets away. Richard’s character is pretty ingenious at times, like when he escapes from a car chase by rolling across the road and shimmying under the street drainage so he can gain access to the underground system. He’s also very cold and chilling, and it makes you wonder why he took such lousy roles so early in his career. I first saw him in Fourteen Hours, and it’s impossible to imagine the emotional young boy playing a villain. But to see him in a completely different light, check out this obscure noir.
Want to watch it? Click here to see it on ok.ru and thanks "Classic Movies Kristine Rose" for posting!
More Richard Basehart movies here!
More Whit Bissell movies here!