Lots of stiffs in fedoras.
He Walked by Night (which has Jack Webb in a small role as a ballistics expert) laid the groundwork for the TV show Dragnet. It operates like a promotional film for the LAPD despite controversy about policing methods and anti-minority attitudes that existed at the time. In my view, later period noir is as culpable of dullness as early studio B's: both types of films lost interest in their antagonists and for different reasons championed staid middle-class values in a moralizing manner. He Walked by Night can't even be bothered to tell us much about the person who is the focus of the whole film, the subject of an LAPD manhunt!
Whoa, nice solid state cathode ray thing!
Richard Basehart (who looks uncannily like Ewan McGregor) makes a living stealing and re-selling unusual pieces of technology, including old military equipment. He claims he personally refurbished the pieces, leading his unwitting fence to think he's a genius with electronics. Basehart's big mistake is killing a cop, resulting in a city wide search that eventually leads to the sewers of Los Angeles (nicely filmed in part apparently by Anthony Mann).
This truly is a black-and-white world, though: these "kids" are not just kids, man - they are fearsome, gum-smacking knife wielding adopsycholescents that give the cops the chills! Most of He Walked by Night throws dramatic shadows on the everyday - danger is lurking everywhere for cops, didn't you know? The post-war society is a battlefield that our totally morally upstanding cops must navigate in their quest to protect regular citizens. (Although protecting you and me seems to be an afterthought)!
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