The Prowler

Given that writer Dalton Trumbo had been blacklisted for his ties to the Communist Party, and director Joseph Losey was about to be, perhaps it’s no surprise that The Prowler is one of the most subversive noirs of the cycle. Its subversiveness doesn’t explode off the screen like in some other 1950’s noirs (1955’s Kiss Me Deadly, 1958’s The Lineup) but subtly oozes from the minds and actions of its lead characters, most notably police officer Webb Garwood (Van Heflin in an under-appreciated tour-de-force performance). In the homme fatale role, Webb is a dissatisfied police officer who sees easy prey in Susan Gilvray (Evelyn Keyes), a bored, timid housewife who reports a prowler to Webb and his partner Bud Crocker (John Maxwell). Pretending to check in on her, the slippery law enforcement officer continues to stop by at night while Susan’s husband works at a radio station; his masterful seduction of her might be considered emotional abuse if it weren’t so subtle (his name is Webb after all), particularly after he stumbles upon the husband’s last will and testament. Before long, we have a kind of Double Indemnity situation (even if the uxoricide is theoretically against Susan’s wishes), a public inquest, an inconvenient pregnancy, and a hideout (and shootout) in a creepy, old ghost town in the middle of the desert. Losey incorporates so many tricks to skirt the Production Code that the film turns out to feel thoroughly modern, despite the often preposterous plot, and at times just simply perverse: for example, from his radio show, Susan’s own husband (disembodied to the viewer until the moment of his murder) plays the romantic music that accompanies her own seduction and lovemaking with Webb (“I’ll be seeing you, Susan,” is his nightly sign-off). Heflin embodies Webb’s emotional volatility and misguided intelligence brilliantly, from his passive-aggressive avoidance of Susan’s pleading phone calls to his nearly psychotic meltdown in the desert. Miller’s camera gives us plenty of dazzling shots to savor (aerial view of Webb in bed from above the ceiling light is a favorite), and Murray’s score is subtle for much of the film but explodes into musical action for the climactic scenes.