Sciacalli nell'ombra

The most unsettling thing about THE PROWLER is the way Van Heflin inhabits the role of a corrupt police officer who worms his way into the life of an innocent woman (Evelyn Keyes), a bored housewife trapped in a loveless marriage with a jealous older man.

From the very first scene, we know that Heflin is going to set a trap for this woman and that eventually she'll succumb to his dubious charm merely to break the cycle of loneliness she's used to. The plot sustains interest up until the cliffhanger of an ending in which all hell breaks loose.

But along the way, there are several glaring faults in the script. Keyes falls in love much too quickly, needing him at her side so desperately that he concocts an accidental shooting to get rid of her hubby. And from then on, her motivations for lying at the inquest are shaky, to say the least. Credibility begins to slip as we lurch toward a very effective ending which won't be revealed here.

In the meantime, the performances are professional, with John Maxwell excellent as a loyal friend and Wheaton Chambers fine as a reluctant doctor. Joseph Losey gets all the suspense he can out of the script, but in the end the bleak low-key photography and sparse sets gives it the feel of a hurried programmer rather than an A-film.

John Maxwell is appropriately cast as 'Bud'. A salt of the earth cop, who has never fired his gun throughout a long impeccable career. Off duty, he lives a quiet, exemplary life with wife Katherine Warren. If he ever heard The Rolling Stones' 'Rocks Off, ' he would have assumed it was a song about geology. Collecting ancient rocks from ghost towns is his spare time passion. In stark contrast, his partner Van Heflin is an opportunist womanizer. The victim of too many bad breaks and a life-long member of 'The World Owes me a Favour Club'.

Answering a call about a prowler at the home of Evelyn Keyes, Maxwell offers practical advice about security, whilst Heflin practically moves in. Returning initially to check on Keyes' safety, an unusual - perhaps unique affair ensues. Keyes much older husband is always present; on air, performing his schmaltzy, cheesy, cornball radio show. Though it provides the ideal set up for their deceit, Heflin finally turns off the set, refusing to allow rubbish radio to ruin their racy romance.

When the dinosaur dee-jay grows suspicious, Heflin calls for a cooling off period. He retires to his spartan apartment, where, bearing an uncanny resemblance to The Royle Family's Craig Cash, he stares blankly into space. Does his vacant, vapid facial expression disguise profound perceptions permeating his punctilious brain....or is he merely musing over a hot dog which he ate in 1946? At this point Keyes bursts in, unlocking his libido and reigniting the relationship. If only her dull, ageing husband, hardly the future of rock'n'roll, the cause of her unhappiness and the barrier to Heflin's future were out of the way.

In the kind of plot where one lie leads to another, then another, followed by a porky of gargantuan proportions, the desperate couple head for Calico, one of Maxwell's ghost towns, uninhabited for many years. Though, apparently Poco knew a lady from there! Heflin has become so entrenched in his own web of corruption and crime that life is like attempting to swim through an ocean of treacle, whilst carrying Cyril Smith.

Not a classic, but a rarely seen noir, The Prowler deserves further investigation. Hope I've sold it to yez.

In this case, Susan Gilvray (Evelyn Keyes) sees a prowler standing outside her window and calls the police. She has the misfortune of one of those officers being whining scheming Web Garwood (Van Heflin), who sees Susan as not too hard on the eyes and also that she is the lonely young wife of a middle aged radio show cornball. Oh, and the cornball just happens to be wealthy.

Usually you can see some good or mitigating factors in a film villain, but Webb is bad to the bone. He thinks he's been the victim all of his life, and he hates being "just another dumb cop". And Susan buys his lines. Did he plan what happened all along? I don't know, but I don't see how he could have figured it any other way.

But then a monkey wrench gets thrown into his path that will tell the whole world what he is just when he thinks he is home free. But this is the production code era, so it had to be that way. But at least the way he is found out is rather unique. With John Maxwell as Bud Crocker, Webb's cop friend/partner who would drive anyone crazy with his endless dull talk about rocks.

Highly recommended for those of you who like film noirs.

Van Heflin is "The Prowler" in this 1951 noir directed by Joseph Losey and also starring Evelyn Keyes. Heflin plays a bitter cop named Webb who meets the lonely Susan (Keyes), whose husband works at night on the radio, when he investigates a prowler at her house. He returns, ostensibly to check up on her, and they discover they're from the same part of the country. Soon, they're involved in a love affair that has serious implications.

Losey was a hit or miss director. He was blacklisted and made several films starring Dirk Bogarde in Europe, including the amazing The Servant and a big miss, Modesty Blaise. Here he's on the money with a suspenseful, well done film. Van Heflin is brilliant as Webb, who finally sees a chance at making his dreams come true, and Keyes is wonderful as Susan, disappointed in her marriage.

"The Prowler" was restored by UCLA, and for some reason, when Christopher-Jan Horrocks discussed it on TCM, he described the story incorrectly.

Frankly, I thought this film had a couple of plot problems, but I can't go into them without giving the film away. The event that the plot hinges on is certainly a daring one for those days. I'll just say that the two main characters would have had to have been Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt for a total stranger to have realized what he realized immediately.

Well worth checking out.

This is a really good and sadly overlooked film noir. No happy endings are to be found here, just good performances and writing and a close to perfect example of the film noir genre.