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What is the first film or television show to employ this trope: character walks away down a blackened hallway with overhead light fixtures creating evenly spaced circles of light on the floor?

In most cases, the lights come on one by one as a character walks under them, as in Cool World:

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    Purely from memory I'd say "The Prisoner" 1969. – Chenmunka May 27 '16 at 10:05
  • Um, possibly the one in your first picture, wherever that's from? – Napoleon Wilson♦ May 27 '16 at 23:48
  • @NapoleonWilson - Unlikely. I asked this after I saw the trope used in an old episode of Twilight Zone, and it smacks of film noir. – Swan May 27 '16 at 23:53
  • OP's right, definitely seems like a film noir trope; see minute 2:09 here (from Phantom Lady, 1944) and I doubt that's even the first instance of it. – Walt May 28 '16 at 17:43

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