Hell Is a City (1960).

Stanley Baker in
Hell Is a City

Important in the evolution of the police procedural, Hell Is a City (U.S. book title: Somewhere in This City) was written by ex-police officer Maurice Procter as the first of his Granchester series. Directed by Val Guest (The Quatermass Xperiment), the film features the always interesting Stanley Baker, Billie Whitelaw, and Donald Pleasence. Baker's Inspector Harry Martineau hunts for an prison escapee in gritty Manchester (filmed on location).

Tribute to Stanley Baker.

There was a fine tribute to the Welsh-born actor-producer Sir Stanley Baker (1928–76) on the BBC's Film Programme, including his roles in Zulu (1964), The Cruel Sea (1953), and The Guns of Navarone (1961), as well as in crime films such as The Criminal (1960), Robbery (dir. Peter Yates, 1967), and early police proceduralist Maurice Procter's Hell Is a City (book 1954; film 1960).

About the image: Stanley Baker as Inspector Martineau in Hell Is a City (dir. Val Guest, 1960)

The First Police Procedurals.

Michael over at 2blowhards recently stated,
". . . it was the crime novelist Ed McBain who kicked off the 'police procedural' genre. . . ."

Not precisely. Although Lawrence Treat denied it, he is frequently credited as the "father" of the police procedural, and Lancashire-born Maurice Procter also made important contributions, such as Hell Is a City (1954). In addition, according to Dean James, although McBain (aka Evan Hunter) certainly popularized and gave distinction to the police procedural, recognition should be given to American author Hillary Waugh (for Last Seen Wearing, 1952) and ever-energetic British writer John Creasey (under the J. J. Marric pseudonym, for Gideon's Day, 1955; filmed by John Ford as Gideon's Day, aka Gideon of Scotland Yard, 1958). Waugh's and Creasey's works appeared before McBain's Cop Hater (1956).