Now Playing: "The Prowler" (1951)

"I couldn't bring myself to touch a gun again as long as I live."

Famous last words, right?  It's certainly on the optimistic side of the 1951 film noir The Prowler.

Susan and her aversion to pulling down the shade

Van Heflin stars as Webb Garwood (seriously amazing name), disgruntled L.A. cop (before all L.A. cops were assumed to be disgruntled.)  He and his partner, Bud Crocker, receive a call one evening to investigate a possible voyeur or prowler at the luxury digs of Susan Gilvray (Evelyn Keyes), who swears she saw a man outside her window as she was emerging from the bath.    As Webb is both disgruntled and played by Mr. Heflin, he immediately falls for the very blonde and very married Susan, whose husband is an overnight radio personality.  As I've noted time and again, these things happen often in films, don't they?  He is so infatuated that he returns later, sans partner Bud, with the oh-so-transparent excuse that follow-up to sexy women at home alone is apparently a little perk provided by the LAPD.

Before you can blink, Susan and Webb are embroiled in an affair.  As this is a film noir we know that it won't end well for one person, if not all of them.

Knock knock . . . 

The Prowler's own backstory was script worthy.  Written by Dalton Trumbo, a screenwriter and novelist, his work is probably better known than his name, although he was one of the highest paid  and most respected screenwriters at one time.  You might recognize a few little films like Kitty Foyle, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Our Vines Have Tender Grapes, Spartacus, Exodus, and Roman Holiday, to name a few.  The last three mentioned were post-Prowler.

Trumbo was also one of the "Hollywood Ten," blacklisted because he refused to testify before the HUAC in 1947 -- likely with good reason since he had joined the Communist Party in 1943.   The refusal to narc led him to be charged with contempt and he was sentenced to a year in federal prison; he served ten months in 1950.  Following his release, he moved to Mexico with his wife, who was also blacklisted, and cranked out more than 30 scripts, reportedly in the bathtub while smoking a cigar.  Trumbo used pseudonyms for the scripts themselves and fronts for the money collected when they sold.  The good news was that his scripts continued to sell.  The bad news was that Dalton Trumbo did not get credit for many years.

Webb Garwood reporting for duty

The Prowler was one of the films that Trumbo wrote, with his friend Hugo Butler claiming official writing credits in his stead.  Butler and his wife had also moved to Mexico and Butler, like Trumbo, would soon also be blacklisted.  Ah, Hollywood.

The Prowler's director, Joseph Losey, while considered a talented director, also had an obvious self-destructive streak.  His rumored alcoholism made it difficult for he and his wife Luisa to have a
baby - - something she thought might patch up their shaky marriage.  Is that ever a good idea?  A miscarriage she suffered led her to an extended period of mourning and Losey began to spend his nights with his Prowler leading lady, Evelyn Keyes.  Miss Keyes just so happened to be the estranged wife of Losey's producer, John Huston.  Yikes.

In fact, Huston was said to have arranged for this film to be a star vehicle for his wife as some sort of wacked parting gift in their marriage, as she had often complained about the lack of good roles under her Columbia contract.

That said, as The Prowler centers around obsession, adultery, and pregnancy, Losey was probably a good choice to helm it, as he had personal experience with all three.

The Prowler's assistant director was a gentleman who entered the business a decade earlier as a production clerk with RKO, working his way up through the ranks as associate producer, assistant director, and production manager.  He would work in television during the early 1950s, direct his first feature film in 1953 and go on to direct two of my favorite Joan Crawford films - - Autumn Leaves in 1956 and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? in 1962.  His name was Robert Aldrich.

I am not super familiar with Miss Keyes' work, other than her supporting role in Gone With the Wind, and I was pleasantly surprised here.  I expected her to be nothing but window dressing, a "dish," as Webb Garwood (I love that name) called her upon first seeing her, but she's presented sympathetically, a woman who loves both her husband and Webb.  Phyllis Dietrichson she's not.  I liked the intro shot of her during the opening credits, where we view her in her bathroom, clad only in a towel, staring at herself in the mirror.  We see her through the window, viewing her through the voyeur's point of view.  It's invasive, lurid, and sets the mood for the film.  She makes eye contact with the camera (i.e., us), lets out a screech and yanks down the shade.  I initially thought maybe this would lead to her being a victim (it is a noir, after all) but good thing I'm not a betting woman because I was dead wrong (no pun intended.)  I also expected that Miss Keyes would slink around in filmy lingerie and seduce Webb -- you know be a seductress.  It doesn't happen.  As I pointed out above, she's seen sympathetically.  Quite unusual for the time, she's portrayed as basically a decent woman who has fallen into an affair and things spiral out of control.

This seems normal

As good as I found Evelyn Keyes, The Prowler belongs to Van Heflin from start to finish.  The last film I saw him in, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, I wasn't that impressed.  (Not just him necessarily but the film overall; I had heard so much about it, I was expecting a lot. and was left disappointed).   This was a whole different ball game.

Heflin is perfection as Webb Garwood (I can't say his name enough).  Between the apparent moodiness (he's disgruntled, remember) and his "I will suck your soul out with my eyes" intense stare, he's deliciously borderline creepy.  We know from the start that something strange is afoot at the Circle K, just because he returns to the Gilvray abode, but he keeps you hoping that your gut feeling about him may be wrong.  Does he truly love Susan or is she a pretty accessory to him, something to show that he's made it?  Or is it Susan and her money?   Or does he love anyone at all?  Heflin is so immersed in his character that he keeps you off balance, unable to determine where Webb and the story are going and what will happen.  Which makes for an excellent little film.

The Prowler isn't life shattering but it's a rather subversive character study of one man whose overwhelming desires lead to cracks in his psyche - - or perhaps those already existing cracks to become mort noticeable.  Thinking back on the film after viewing, it leaves you with one main question - - could Webb Garwood have been the voyeur from the start?  It's an unanswered question that explains both a lot and little.

Joseph Losey, the film's director, said that the film was about "false values," with "the means justifying the end, and the end justifying the means."  See The Prowler for yourself and decide if Losey summed up the picture brilliantly in one sentence.

I have seen better film noirs and I have seen worse but The Prowler is a solid entry in the genre.  It kept me guessing all the way through - - I felt I knew where the story would go and I was only correct in one aspect.  The end came somewhat quickly but it was satisfying.  If you are going to see The Prowler for only reason, Van Heflin as Webb Garwood (you knew I had to get it in at least once more) is it.  He's pretty close to flawless here.

Worth a thousand words (or at least my review)

The Prowler is shown on TCM and can be found on Amazon Prime and Hulu, as well as on DVD.


As a post script to the mini bio about Dalton Trumbo above, while his name could not be attached to the project when filmed, he did get some involvement by being the voice on the radio that was Susan's husband.  For that, he was paid a whopping $35.

It would take some time -- decades, in fact -- but Trumbo would eventually be given recognition for the scripts he penned during his blacklisted period.  In 1975, he would finally receive the Academy Award that was rightfully his for his script of The Brave One, which had won for Best Story in 1956.

Ironically, Joseph Losey would also be blacklisted by Hollywood (like Trumbo, he had joined the Communist Party), leading him to decamp to the United Kingdom, where he would finish out his career.    He and his wife Louisa would divorce and he would remarry twice more - -neither time to Evelyn Keyes.

Evelyn Keyes and John Huston's divorce was finalized by the time The Prowler was released.  The one-time paramour of producer Mike Todd, who left her for Elizabeth Taylor, she married for a fourth and final time in 1957 to bandleader and serial husband Artie Shaw, who counted Lana Turner and Ava Gardner among his ex-wives.  Evelyn, who was his eighth wife, remained married to him until 1985 when they divorced.  Neither remarried.