Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Helllins It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Edwin The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

tomgillespie2002 The infamous Hollywood blacklist, which saw writers, actors and directors alike accused of harbouring Communist sympathies and forced others to name names or else face exile from the business altogether, may have been one of the darkest times the industry has ever faced. Yet, it also inspired great anger in the movies, and writers and directors channelled this frustration into some of the best movies of the era, taking the opportunity to delve into and pick apart the underbelly of the so-called perfect American society. Director Joseph Losey and screenwriter Dalton Trumbo - the latter already on the blacklist and working under a pseudonym - combined to create one of the darkest and most fascinating film noirs ever to come out of Hollywood with the inexplicably obscure The Prowler.After seeing a strange man lurking in the backyard of her hacienda, Susan Gilvray (Evelyn Keyes), the wife of a radio personality, calls the cops and is greeted by partners Webb Garwood (Van Heflin) and Bud Crocker (John Maxwell). It's a routine visit, but Webb falls for the striking Susan, and is soon back to pay her a follow-up call in the hope of seducing her while her husband is at work. The two start a passionate and dangerous affair, but Webb becomes frustrated as Susan cannot bring herself to leave her husband. Retreating to his squalid, cramped apartment, Webb ignores Susan's calls while hatching a 'perfect crime' - to become a prowler himself and take out the man standing in his way of happiness in the process. But there's no such thing as a perfect crime in the world of noir, and the couple are soon under suspicion and on the run.One of the key aspects to the film noir genre is the idea of the femme fatale - the beautiful blonde or brunette who, frustrated and bored with their current situation, start to manipulate events with devastating results, and usually duping some poor love-struck sap in the process. The Prowler is in many ways incredibly similar to Billy Wilder's masterwork Double Indemnity, but with the gender roles reversed. Here, it is Van Heflin's Webb Garwood who is the schemer, and he does so with such arrogant relish that I found myself almost willing him on. The cogs start turning the moments he lays eyes on Susan, and they turn ever faster when he takes a peek at her husband's generous will. He is a truly hideous, wretched creation, played with incredible naturalism by Heflin. The devious intentions glisten in his eyes from the moment he turns up at Susan's house for the first time alone.Trumbo, who produced some of his greatest work while on the blacklist (and winning two Oscars), clearly enjoyed dissecting a trusted American institution and showing its ugly side. It's shocking to see Webb, a police officer often in uniform, act with such malicious intent in a time when America was still promoting the idea of the 'American Dream'. Webb knows what his dream is and goes about taking it with all his might, mirroring the proud capitalist ideals of his country. It's incredibly subversive stuff for the genre, and is even bold enough to let Susan, an adulterer carrying a child conceived out of wedlock, off relatively easy for her sins. It's a miracle it got past the Hays Code, and its somewhat taboo subject matter and the matter-of-fact way in which it goes about its business is probably why it isn't better known. Yet this deserves to find a new audience, as on top of being one of the most intriguing film noirs out there, it's also significant both historically and culturally.

dongwangfu This note contains spoilers.Although I am not really interested in whether this meets whichever of the many definitions of noir, it is worth saying that this film plays more like a tragedy -- the Van Heflin character is tormented by multiple motivations and ultimately sows the seed of his own destruction. There is no force of order pursuing him, at least not one that he didn't put into action himself.While Helfin's character proves that athletes who fail to realize their ambitions to turn pro are the true engine of criminality in society, the Evelyn Keyes character is more complicated, and by that I mean she is not written entirely consistently. She vacillates from satisfied and loyal to..., well, the opposite, in the same scene. Is this hidden character assassination by the director? Which brings us to the main question I had: who reports the second prowler? For the longest time I assumed it was Susan and that there would be a second act in which it turns out she was manipulating Webb all along. And with films of this era, often there are signs of previous resolutions that were deemed inappropriate. They sure spend a long time making sure Webb and Willam Gilvray never see each other prior to the denouement. I wonder if some early Dalton Trumbo version of the script had Webb as a manipulated lover being set up as the fall guy?

bkoganbing The Prowler marked the last time Joseph Losey would be working in America for years. Still despite him being a prominent name on the blacklist, Losey turned in some real classics when he was working in the United Kingdom, especially when he teamed with Dirk Bogarde. I could easily have seen Bogarde in the role that Van Heflin plays here had The Prowler been done across the pond.Heflin stars as a cop who thinks that after being a high school basketball star that life should have given him a better existence. When he and partner John Maxwell stop at Evelyn Keyes's house answering a report of a prowler, Keyes remembers him as the bigshot high school jock he once was. With some trepidation Heflin and Keyes are soon carrying on behind her husband's back.She tries to break it off, but Heflin is obsessed with her, much like Montgomery Clift was obsessed with Elizabeth Taylor in A Place In The Sun. Being a cop Heflin frames up a murder where husband Emerson Treacy is killed by Heflin answering the call of another prowler on the premises. He gets away with it and Heflin and Keyes are married.Needless to say it all unravels as Heflin's obsession with both success and Keyes get intertwined. The Prowler is cleverly directed by Losey who brings out the degeneracy in Heflin's character. The Prowler has to rank as one of Van Heflin's best screen performances.Some elements of this film are also found in the Kurt Russell/Ray Liotta film Unlawful Entry from the Nineties. For fans of the director and the stars, a must see item.

Neil Doyle The most unsettling thing about THE PROWLER is the way Van Heflin inhabits the role of a corrupt police officer who worms his way into the life of an innocent woman (Evelyn Keyes), a bored housewife trapped in a loveless marriage with a jealous older man.From the very first scene, we know that Heflin is going to set a trap for this woman and that eventually she'll succumb to his dubious charm merely to break the cycle of loneliness she's used to. The plot sustains interest up until the cliffhanger of an ending in which all hell breaks loose.But along the way, there are several glaring faults in the script. Keyes falls in love much too quickly, needing him at her side so desperately that he concocts an accidental shooting to get rid of her hubby. And from then on, her motivations for lying at the inquest are shaky, to say the least. Credibility begins to slip as we lurch toward a very effective ending which won't be revealed here.In the meantime, the performances are professional, with John Maxwell excellent as a loyal friend and Wheaton Chambers fine as a reluctant doctor. Joseph Losey gets all the suspense he can out of the script, but in the end the bleak low-key photography and sparse sets gives it the feel of a hurried programmer rather than an A-film.