Le Rôdeur

As the story unfolds we see the true personalities of the main charcters come clearly through the film screen. There is the beautiful wife Susan Gilvray (Evelyn Keyes) who married a successful but older radio host who provides for his wife Susan but keeps her more as another prized possession under lock and key, than as his loving wife. When a prowler is spotted outside Susan's window she calls the police and two (2) policeman show up one of whom is a rugged looking unmarried and very single policeman named Webb Garwood (Van Heflin).

Officer Webb Garwood is immediately attracted to the pretty and helpless Susan, who spends her evenings alone listening on the radio to her older husbands well known radio broadcasts. So Webb makes some more than frequent late evening and impromptu visits to check up on the pretty Susan who falls prey to Webb's flattery and promises of a better life if she agrees to leave her wealthy husband for a beat cops salary.

The story unfolds slowly with lust and unfulfilled dreams becoming the films main focus with the third wheel becoming Susan's absent husband so Webb decides he has to make a plan to free Susan so that the two of them can have an open relationship.

As with any good plan there are flaws with Webb's own plan and we realize that the noose is closing in on these two adulterous lovers. Greed, lust and looking for a short cut to happiness can only end up in a bad result and this film is a good example of a film noir that works quite well and will hold your attention throughout.

I give it a solid 8 out of 10 rating.

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.

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.

A seedy but interesting minor early film noir from soon-to-be-blacklisted Hollywood director Joseph Losey who went onto make his name in the U.K. with films like "The Servant" and "Accident".

Although the action kicks off with an apparent prowler at the window of Evelyn Keyes Susan Gilvray character, the peeping tom is never seen or heard of again. Two cops come to do a routine check up on the incident and it's probably no accident that almost the first time we see Van Heflin's Webb Garwood character he takes up the exact position where the voyeur would have stood. Young and cocky, he decides to try his chances with the young home-alone woman even though she's made it quite clear she's married and so he pays her a return visit, this time on his own at the end of his shift ostensibly to see she's still alright but in reality he's on the make.

Initially she tries to give him the brush off even as we hear the voice of her obviously older absent husband in the background in his job as a cosy, late-night radio dee-jay who pointedly signs off every broadcast with a loving message directed personally at her, but Heflin's persistence pays off and soon enough they're off and running in an affair which you just know will never end well.

A key piece of exposition passed on to the viewer from a third party is that Susan and her husband could never have the children she wanted due to infertility on his part but regardless of this it's obvious that Garwood wants her to himself and so sets up a convenient night-time shooting of the docile-looking spouse in our only sighting of him in the whole movie. Garwood contrives a fabricated defence and gets off with an accidental death verdict that acquits him of blame which initially offends Susan but before long he's schmoozed his way back into her affections helped by a hefty life insurance pay-out on the dead man's name and soon enough they marry. But not soon enough, as Susan becomes aware she is already several months pregnant, he can't handle the scandal and whisks her away to an eerie, storm-buffeted ghost town to have the baby away from prying eyes. The conclusion shows Heflin's character to be the selfish heel he undoubtedly is and karma duly comes his way.

I was interested in the blunt way that the couple's brazen affair was presented and in particular the clear inference about the physicality of their relationship making the widow pregnant which I thought was quite daring for the time. Heflin is very good as the cake-and-eat-it guy who should have left well alone and Keyes is also very good as the conflicted wife lured in by Heflin's youthful passion and likely prospect of motherhood.

Like I said, it's a grubby, everyday story with none of the main characters coming out of it well, but sometimes life is like that and this effective little feature deserves kudos for that, at the very least.

One of the many great films noirs the director made in the fifties ,which would culminate in "time without pity" :and a very successful one, thanks to Van Heflin,who at first sight seems a helpful affable cop whereas he is actually a cupid embittered man:he was not given the chance to study at the university and he became a policeman by default.He must have gone through hard times :when the woman invites him for dinner ,he catches all that he can on his way to the dining room.

In its second part the movie recalls Fritz Lang's "You only live twice "(after "the prowler" ,Losey remade "M"),but with a big difference : Lang's heroes are both victims of an unfair society whereas Susan is completely innocent (as far as the crime is concerned)but her new husband is dangerous ,verging on paranoia (the scene when you hear the dead speak on the record is stunning).It's perhaps one of the rare movies in which a baby becomes a living threat.Even the wind ,in the shack -probably Victor Seastrom's silent movie influence- becomes an enemy .