The Prowler (1951)

US VCI DVD edition



A much talked about and almost legendary Film Noir Classic that has been rarely seen is now restored with the help of i.a.
The Film Noir Foundation and Eddie Muller, The King of the audio commentaries, James Ellroy and others.
It's a brilliant film, so good it almost goes into my film noir Top Ten list along with favourites as Gun Crazy, Detour, Double
Indemnity, Leave Her to Heaven, Out of the Past, Scarlet Street etc.
I've always liked Van Heflin in any which part he chosen to do, and Evelyn Keyes impress a lot also in this film. Joseph
Losey, i confess, i thought was an englishman that made boring and pretentious artmovies, but he was an american that
had to flee the US due to the Joseph McCarty leftist hunting at the beginning of the 1950's, and Dalton Trumbo was a great
iconic script writer that was blacklisted.

The Prowler is a medlodrama where the unhappy cop Webb Garwood (Van Heflin) and his colleague receives a patrol car call
to an elegant LA address where a ditto elegant lady has been peeped upon by some Prowler. Garwood is catching the vibes,
the Sweet Smell of Pussy and even sweeter perhaps of Money. The woman's name is Susan Gilvray (Evelyn Keyes) and she's
married to a successful Radio man, and as this is a Film Noir and written by Dalton Trumbo, things will go wrong.
Susan may live in a luxurious mansion in the rich part of Los Angeles and she may be married to a rich husband, BUT ....
he's much older than her and impotent also, so she falls head over heels in love with the handsome Cop. It doesn't bother her
that he walks around in her house snooping and with an arrogant smirk on his face.

Garwood hates being a Cop and he dreams about owning his own Motel, he wants Susan to go with him and the scheme is on.

Film Poster

The Sexually frustrated and unhappily married Susan Gilvray is ready to go with the Bad Cop

Reaching the last third the film the film surprises and goes in a new direction, and the intensity heightens. This film is almost a
chamber piece of a noir drama as the film is about the interaction between them, between Van Heflin and Evelyn Kayes.
The scene with them both, sitting silently in the dark in their Motel room with the distant noice of the traffic passing by outside
has stuck with me for some reason. The droning voice of her husband on the Radio , like a hated prison guard watching her

The film was presented in 4:3 fullscreen original ratio, black & white, english mono audio and a beautiful restored print.
Extras: a commentary track with Eddie Muller, a 25 minutes long featurette "The Cost of Living: Creating The Prowler" with i.a.
Eddie Muller, James Ellroy and Christopher Trumbo, On the Prowl: Restoring The Prowler (9 minutes), theatrical trailer and a
Press Book photo gallery

 

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