There's a few scenes with a certain strange and quiet nerve here, but this film is fucking humdrum, flimsy propaganda concealed behind a simple, presumably "true" crime story; an assertive focus on the EFFICACIOUS police procedures - a masculin, authorative voice over woodenly dance along with the pretty images - and a one-sided depiction of a merciless, infernal bad guy does not taste very good. But the elegant cinematography and majestic lighting give an otherwise shitty film some class.

The narrator gets really annoying in this movie because his lines are badly written. There are some good moments like the scene in the sewers but there are numerous better Film Noirs out there to watch.

Uneven. The first 45 minutes is a rather plodding police procedural, done in pseudo-documentary style and complete with one of the most pompous and overbearing voiceovers I've ever heard. Then, out of nowhere, just as I was about to fall asleep out of boredom, it suddenly turns into an incredibly taut thriller. Very odd. It's a credit to Baseheart's acting that, despite the non-existent development of his character, he can elicit such sympathy towards the end.

Another fine performance from Richard Basehart. This is a very minimalist noir, no femmes fatales, no complex psychology just a criminal and a tightly scripted manhunt. More twists and turns might have made this better but the leanness does have a certain appeal and there's no denying that the ending is great.

Very solid and entertaining noir. Don't really have much to say about it, other than that. Oh, yeah - nice sewer chase that predates The Third Man.

A decent detective thriller gets elevated by its superb sewer chase ending. The inspiration for "Dragnet", which shows in the narration and the attention to police work. It's unusual how much it focuses on the police, actually, and it works both for and against the movie. Some of the stuff isn't that interesting (although I'm sure it was in 1948), on the other hand the fact that there's no half-assed attempt to explain the killer's psychology is kind of refreshing.