moonspinner55 Lonely housewife, whose disc jockey husband works the graveyard shift, calls the police one night to report a peeping Tom and attracts the attention of one of the two policemen who come to investigate. Later that same night, he drops by again, and soon they discover they have a lot in common. Not terribly interesting crime-melodrama, with Van Heflin's cop going from wolf on the prowl to murderer in an unconvincingly short amount of time. The script, credited to Hugo Butler (fronting for blacklisted Dalton Trumbo) from an original treatment by Robert Thoeren and Hans Wilhelm, seems to take its cue from "The Postman Always Rings Twice", only Evelyn Keyes (whose acting is dry and ordinary, like a colorless Susan Hayward) is hardly in Lana Turner's league. Third-act in the Calico ghost town does provide for an unusual climax, but by then the story has gotten all balled up. ** from ****

evanston_dad Egads, what a creepy, strange film, and I mean that in the best possible way."The Prowler" is film noir at its weirdest, which for this film noir lover is synonymous with most entertaining. Van Heflin plays a psychopath cop who begins pretty much stalking Evelyn Keyes after being summoned to her house to investigate a peeping tom. He kills her husband in what is outright murder but which he stages as justifiable homicide so that they can run off and get married. But only a few days into their marriage, Keyes announces to him that she's four months pregnant with his baby, and he convinces her that they need to go hide out in an old abandoned ghost town until after she's had the baby, because he's afraid that if people find out they were getting it on before the husband's death, a proverbial can of worms will be opened.All of this plays out as strangely as it sounds on paper. I found myself more than once thinking "WHERE is this movie going?" One criticism you most certainly cannot level at it is predictability.Heflin is excellent as the kooky cop, and Keyes was one of the best noir dames. In this one, you spend the first half of the film willing her character to resist the passes of what is clearly a nut job, and the second half saying "I told you so" as she catches up with the audience and realizes Heflin is off his rocker.This movie has cult classic written all over it.Grade: A

madmonkmcghee Deliciously subversive noir about a rogue cop( Van Heflin) who thinks he deserves a shortcut to the good life and tries to achieve this by killing the aging husband of a desperate housewife (Evelyn Keyes). Purely plot-wise "The Prowler" sounds like yet another variation on the template created by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler for Double Indemnity. Well, kind of, but what a glorious twists screenwriter Dalton Trumbo gave to it. Not credited because of his blacklisting, his anonymity gave him ample opportunity to write a scathing indictment of the American Dream. Heflin's character is totally amoral, self-centered and manipulative in his pursuit of material wealth.Evelyn Keyes' not-so-grieving widow is so eager to start a family she's prepared to overlook the murder of her husband by her new beau.Of course their dreams all come crashing down in the appropriately bleak finale, but not in an overtly moralistic way. It's not surprising that this movie got director Losey in hot water with the Red-baiters of the HUAC. Not only does a defender of law and order use his job to wrangle his way into a lonely woman's life, he literally seems to gets away with murder. At least, if it had been up to the inept law court investigating the shooting. His crime is not discovered by diligent detective work, but blunt betrayal. Both Heflin and Keyes underplay their roles perfectly; a too over-dramatic approach would have made the story seem almost farcical and unconvincing. So much is conveyed by mere gestures and looks, a real lost art in an age where everything is spelled and shouted out in catchphrases and slogans. The camera-work is appropriately low-key and underscores the sordidness and bleakness of the doomed affair. Top Notch Noir.

kidboots Where do I start - heaping praise on this superlative film? From the very start there is something sinister and slightly creepy about Officer Webb Garwood (Van Heflin), who with a fellow officer is called to Susan Gilray's (Evelyn Keyes) house to investigate an alleged siteing of a prowler. Garwood, from his childhood, has always nursed feelings of deep resentment toward his father, who he feels didn't have the guts to get out of the rut and earn big money. He equates success with wealth and by the time they have checked out "the prowler", he is completely fascinated with Susan and the lifestyle she has. So when he goes back for a routine check, you know that he doesn't have his "kindly policeman's hat" on. His ruthlessness has drawn out Susan's vulnerability and over coffee she confides her unhappiness - after finding out that Webb comes from her hometown - "We Hoosiers have to stick together"!!I think Losey's plan never to show John Gilray - except for the one scene - draws the viewer closer into Susan and Garwood's web. Susan, initially, is an ambiguous character - does she have something to hide? was there ever a prowler? Then you realise, she is just a frightened woman, who married Gilray, not for love but because he could take her away from the life she felt she was falling into. Appearances can be deceptive - Gilray's soothing, folky voice (apparently Dalton Trumbo's) (he is a night time D.J.) hides a controlling, jealous personality - the way Webb's uniform hides an opportunistic nature. The last half of the film goes in a completely different direction as things unravel rapidly once Webb and Susan are on their honeymoon.Van Heflin, it goes without saying, is superb, like Spencer Tracy, a real actor's actor. With an odd nuance or gesture, you know instantly that he is not to be trusted (he says a couple of times he hates being a policeman and it is only when he leaves the force that he becomes more human). Evelyn Keyes is a revelation - I haven't seen her in anything other than "The Jolson Story" but she is more than a match for Heflin in this movie - her ambiguousness and highly strung personality, disappears in the last half of the movie when she becomes strong and resolute in her character.Highly, Highly Recommended.