Why is He Walked by Night described as a semidocumentary film?

He Walked by Night (1948) is categorized as a semidocumentary film because it utilizes a style that reconstructs true criminal cases, often incorporating location shooting to ground its fictional narrative in reality.12

While Anthony Mann directed much of the film—which depicts a manhunt for a cop killer—it is formally credited to Alfred Werker. This style was a prominent trend in late 1940s American cinema, where studios sought to address postwar social and psychological issues through realistic, small-scale dramas rather than lavish spectacles. By blending factual details from actual events with a fictional story, the semidocumentary approach provided a sense of authenticity and immediacy to the crime genre.312