The Prowler Movie Review

Sometimes, Van Heflin could melt into the wallpaper and sometimes he could creep up on you and demand your attention as no one else could. The overlooked Evelyn Keyes was capable of superb performances, too, and both were at their best in The Prowler, under Joseph Losey's expert direction. In her autobiography, Keyes says that then-blacklisted Dalton Trumbo had a hand in the script. Heflin is a cop investigating a prowler at Keyes’ home. It's as good a way to meet as any and it isn't long before he's pretending to be after a prowler so he can shoot Keyes’ husband, an impotent disc jockey, and run away with the widow. That's his plan, anyway. The unwitting femme fatale isn't in on the plan, nor is she aware of the next unexpected development. The Prowler is a caustic portrait of the horrors of the early ‘50s, with the smallest of canvases, in very sharp relief.

1951 92m/B Van Heflin, Evelyn Keyes, Katherine Warren, John Maxwell, Emerson Treacy, Madge Blake, Wheaton Chambers, Sherry Hall, Robert Osterloh, Matt Dorff; D: Joseph Losey; W: Hugo Butler, Dalton Trumbo; C: Arthur C. Miller; M: Lyn Murray. VHS