The Prowler (1951) Reviews

• Edgy noir piece in desperate need of a wider audience.

  Spikeopath2010-03-20

  Van Heflin plays Webb Garwood, a grumpy and unhappy cop who is called to investigate a suspected prowler at the home of Susan Gilvray (Evelyn Keyes). Garwood is smitten with the young and attractive woman from the off, and sensing her marriage to a late night radio personality is far from happy, he sets about wooing her, obsessively. It's the start of a coupling that is going to travel down a particularly dark road. The film opens quite brilliantly with a quick shift of tone, Susan Gilvary is pampering herself in her bathroom, we see her from the window, domestic contentedness. This shot is accompanied by jaunty and jolly music, but then in the blink of an eye, she spies something out the window (it's us you know), a scream, the music becomes troubled and she draws the blind. Welcome to Joseph Losey's creepy skin itcher, The Prowler. Very much a two character piece, The Prowler flips the favoured femme fatale formula around to great effect. Here it's the male protagonist that is the seducer, a cop no less, the abuse of power hanging heavy over proceedings like, yes, some "prowler" lurking in your back garden. It's made clear to us very early on that Garwood is troubled, he's up to no good, with a snarl here and a shifty smirk there, we just know that poor Susan is under threat from a man meant to protect her. Yet in a perverse piece of writing, Garwood surely does love Susan, but the bile within and the skew whiff way he now views the world-and his place within it, has ultimately made him a most dangerous anti-hero. It's evident that the makers here are wryly observing, but without preaching about, the shady underbelly of the American dream, the social differences of the two characters a most intriguing aspect of the story. As is the shift from the affluent setting of the Gilvray home in the first half of the piece, to the finale played out amongst the ghost towns in the Mojave Desert. The desolation of the landscape has rarely been so apt in a noirish world. Technically The Prowler boasts high quality. Losey's direction is tight and holds the viewer in a vice like grip, while the art direction from Boris Leven is superb, particularly in that first quarter as the bright Gilvray house is cloaked in sparse darkness. But it's with Heflin, and to a lesser extent, Keyes, that the film reaches its high points. Keyes' character frustrates immensely, her decision making annoys and her surrender to Garwood is at first hard to swallow. But this is a testament to the good work that Keyes does, that she can induce these feelings for the character is surely a job well done. Heflin, tho, is a different kettle of fish. A criminally undervalued actor in his generation, Heflin serves notice here that he could play a bad guy convincingly, almost terrifyingly so too. His shift from meek, almost puppy dog love yearner, to conniving bastard is handled adroitly and gives film noir one of its best homme fatales. Back on release big hitting critics such as Manny Farber and Wallace Markfield unreservedly praised the film. While pulp writer supreme James Ellroy is quoted as saying it was one of his favourite films. So it's somewhat surprising that it took until late 2010 to receive a DVD release, that, much like the machinations of Webb Garwood, is very much a crime. Moody, bleak and corrosive in its telling, this is a must see for noir and Heflin purists. 9/10

• Heflin's edgy menace rivets in another bad-cop noir

  bmacv2001-06-04

  As an actor Van Heflin rarely got his due. He has a passive, even recessive quality that nonetheless lets viewers see clearly into the roilings of his characters' restive minds. In The Prowler, he plays a disgruntled cop -- a disgruntled human being, really, who blames the world for everything that fate and his own shortcomings in the mental-health department have brought him. Called to investigate a peeping tom by Evelyn Keyes (another edgy presence) -- her well-to-do husband works nights as a radio farm-show host -- Heflin falls for her. Obsessed (now we'd call him a stalker), he woos her despite her initial reluctance (now we'd call her a born victim). After they fall in love, Heflin dreams up a scheme in which a phantom "prowler" would be a good scapegoat if her husband should happen to get dead all of a sudden. Losey, in his early career, displayed a sensibility that grows ever more forlorn and hopeless as Heflin and the now-pregnant Keyes go on the lam, first to a motel he owns near Barstow then to a ghost-town called Calico. The Prowler draws on a number of emblematic "noir" themes yet plays them in a new key.

• This gris world is pure noir

  melvelvit-12008-05-09

  Patrolman Webb Garwood (Van Heflin), called to the upscale home of a late night radio DJ to investigate a reported prowler, covets the man's wife (Evelyn Keyes) and lifestyle and proceeds, through seduction, manipulation, and murder, to attain them with ironic results... Alain Silver, in his "Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference To The American Style", notes that "like most of Losey's American films, THE PROWLER is concerned with complex social issues, which make it marginal to the film noir series." I couldn't agree more that using Film Noir to enlighten dilutes the dark universe the cycle represents but in this case that's a moot point. THE PROWLER doesn't examine social issues, complex or otherwise, and isn't an indictment of America in the mid-twentieth century as much as it is an expose of modern life itself with all its banality and dull aspiration. Better yet, there are no explanations, causes, or, thankfully, remedies offered for the ultimately empty American Dream. Existentially, there's no escape for the outwardly normal anti-hero who is, ironically, a psychopath sworn to "protect and serve" the very ideals he doesn't share. Lonely housewives in unhappy marriages, failed dreams of stardom and college scholarships, soulless ambition for mediocre achievement hidden beneath deceptive outward appearances, and hopes for a future (linked to a motor court) that isn't much better than the past or present all serve to point up the futility of upward mobility. In a bitter irony, Garwood has perverted the American dream but, once attained, that very dream becomes inverted and its ultimate reward (creating a family) proves his undoing. That the birth takes place in a desert ghost town perfectly illustrates a wasteland where everyone is either unfeeling, unsuspecting or dull-witted ...and everything's nothing, really. In its depiction of a monotonous, gray world, THE PROWLER is pure Film Noir and Joseph Losey skillfully conveyed the often pervasive sense of dissatisfaction and ennui with bourgeoisie life but, because of his off screen politics, the film was unfairly tarred with the same brush that derailed the director's career in Hollywood.

• I Will Be Seeing You, Susan

  claudio_carvalho2014-10-14

  In California, the gorgeous housewife Susan Gilvray (Evelyn Keyes) glances at a prowler outside her house in a wasteland and she calls the police. Officer Webb Garwood (Van Heflin) and his partner attend the call and do not find anyone. Later Webb returns to her house with the pretext of checking if everything is OK with Susan and she invites him to drink a coffee with her. Soon he learns that Susan is married with John Gilvray (Sherry Hall), a middle age broadcaster of a late night radio show. Further, they discover that they are from the same homeland. Webb hits on Susan and soon they have a love affair. But when John suspects of Susan, their relationship comes to an end. Webb plots a scheme to get rid off John and he kills John simulating an accident. Webb goes on trial and is considered not-guilty for the murder of John. Webb quits the police and manipulates John's brother to get close to Susan again. He learns that John could not have children and their marriage was not perfect. Webb meets Susan and convinces her that he is really innocent. Soon they get married and they buy a motel to start a new life. But in the wedding night, Susan discloses that she is four months pregnant. How could they explain the baby to the press after the publicity around the case? "The Prowler" is a great but unknown Film-Noir directed by Joseph Losey with a story of adultery and greed. Webb Garwood is a sordid frustrated man that manipulates the housewife Susan Gilvray, who has a loveless marriage without children with an older man, to marry him. The conclusion is moralist but does not spoil the story. My vote is eight. Title (Brazil): "Cúmplice das Sombras" ("Accomplice of the Shadows")

• From "Lousy Breaks" To "The Tail-End Of Creation"

  seymourblack-12014-04-09

  In "The Prowler", an adulterous affair born out of greed and betrayal leads inexorably to murder as a manipulative man pursues the wealth and status that he believes have only been denied to him in the past because of "lousy breaks". His cynicism is perfectly exemplified when he says, "so I'm no good, but I'm no worse than anyone else", and his ambition to own his own motel in Las Vegas is attractive because it offers him the chance to be able to earn money even when he's sleeping. This sordid tale contains numerous elements that are immediately recognisable as being similar to "Double Indemnity", "The Postman Always Rings Twice" and a number of home invasion movies but it's also brilliantly directed, extremely tense and full of interesting twists. After a woman who lives in an affluent neighbourhood of Los Angeles reports the presence of a prowler on her property, a couple of cops call by to investigate. When the older, more experienced Bud Crocker (John Maxwell) interviews Susan Gilvray (Evelyn Keyes), his partner, Webb Garwood (Van Heflin) checks around for any obvious evidence that might help to identify the intruder. Although no evidence is found, Susan seems reassured by the officers' prompt response and the advice that she's been given about how to avoid attracting peeping toms in future and the police officers leave. Shortly after, Webb returns, ostensibly to make a follow-up call and this proves to be the first of a series of nightly calls that he makes to Susan's house. It transpires that Susan is a lonely, bored housewife who spends her evenings alone because her husband is a night-time radio D.J. She doesn't particularly like Webb at first but after they discover that they both came to California from Indiana and she remembers seeing him during his time as an accomplished basketball player, she warms to him and they embark on an affair. Webb had been attracted to Susan because of her looks and her obvious wealth but one evening after seeing her significantly older husband's will, he becomes aware that she'll be the recipient of an enormous inheritance after his passing and so concocts a plan to kill John Gilvray (Sherry Hall). His plan works perfectly but Susan is immediately horrified because she believes that he's murdered her husband. In the coroner's inquest that follows, Webb's account of the circumstances under which he killed his victim are believed by the jury and Susan also feels compelled to lie in support of his evidence because to do otherwise could expose the fact that they were having an affair and she might be suspected of being an accomplice. A verdict of accidental homicide follows and so does Webb's next plan to convince Susan that he's genuinely innocent of the crime. A short time later, after Webb has brought Susan around to the belief that he's innocent and he's finally left the job that he despises, the couple get married and buy a motel in Las Vegas but just at the point where he thinks that all his scheming has finally paid off, Susan tells him that she's four months pregnant and the implications of this information becoming widely known sends them into hiding in a desert ghost town before a series of further twists follow. One of the creepiest features of "The Prowler" is the way in which John Gilvray's voice always seems to be present during the couple's affair and is even heard after his death when they're hiding out in the desert. His regular way of signing off his broadcasts with the words "I'll be seeing you, Susan" is similarly disturbing and makes her betrayal seem even worse. The insinuation of voyeurism that Joseph Losey's direction emphasises at the very beginning of the movie and the way in which Webb is then shown framed by the bathroom window a little later, are both wonderfully executed and inherently sleazy. Webb and Susan were both dissatisfied with their lives and were desperate for something better but their union didn't ultimately achieve what they'd hoped it would. Van Heflin is totally believable as Webb and Evelyn Keyes does a great job in giving out the mixed signals that are symptomatic of someone who's in constant turmoil because her desires and her sense of guilt are constantly in conflict with each other.