The Prowler (1951)

Director:

Joseph Losey

Writers (WGA):

Robert Thoeren (story) and
Hans Wilhelm (story)

Release Date:

3 December 1951 (Sweden)

Genre:

Crime | Film-Noir | Thriller | Drama

Tagline:

Watch out for THE PROWLER

Plot Keywords:

Psycho Cop | Stalker | Police | Robbery

Cast

Van Heflin	...	Webb Garwood
Evelyn Keyes	...	Susan Gilvray
John Maxwell	...	Bud Crocker
Katherine Warren	...	Mrs. Crocker
Emerson Treacy	...	William Gilvray
Madge Blake	...	Martha Gilvray
Wheaton Chambers	...	Doctor James
Robert Osterloh	...	Coroner
Sherry Hall	...	John Gilvray
Louise Lorimer	...	Motel Manager

Also Known As:

Cost of Living (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

USA:92 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:(Banned) (1952) | Sweden:15

Company:

Horizon Pictures

Trivia:

Novelist James Ellroy ("L.A. Confidential", "The Black Dahlia") once called this his favorite film and described it as "a masterpiece of sexual creepiness, institutional corruption and suffocating, ugly passion."

Movie Connections:

Featured in Kika (1993)

Soundtrack:

Baby

This gris world is pure noir

Patrolman Webb Garwood (Van Heflin), called to the upscale home of a late night radio DJ to investigate a reported prowler, covets the man's wife (Evelyn Keyes) and lifestyle and proceeds, through seduction, manipulation, and murder, to attain them with ironic results.

Alain Silver, in his "Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference To The American Style", notes that "like most of Losey's American films, THE PROWLER is concerned with complex social issues, which make it marginal to the film noir series." I couldn't agree more that using Film Noir to enlighten dilutes the dark universe the cycle represents but in this case that's a moot point. THE PROWLER doesn't examine social issues, complex or otherwise, and isn't an indictment of America in the mid-twentieth century as much as it is an expose of modern life itself with all its banality and dull aspiration. Better yet, there are no explanations, causes, or, thankfully, remedies offered for the ultimately empty American Dream. Existentially, there's no escape for the outwardly normal anti-hero who is, ironically, a psychopath sworn to "protect and serve" the very ideals he doesn't share. Lonely housewives in unhappy marriages, failed dreams of stardom and college scholarships, soulless ambition for mediocre achievement hidden beneath deceptive outward appearances, and hopes for a future (linked to a motor court) that isn't much better than the past or present all serve to point up the futility of upward mobility. In a bitter irony, Garwood has perverted the American dream but, once attained, that very dream becomes inverted and its ultimate reward (creating a family) proves his undoing. That the birth takes place in a desert ghost town perfectly illustrates a wasteland where everyone is either unfeeling, unsuspecting or dull-witted ...and everything's nothing, really. In its depiction of a monotonous, gray world, THE PROWLER is pure Film Noir and Joseph Losey skillfully conveyed the often pervasive sense of dissatisfaction and ennui with bourgeoisie life but, because of his off screen politics, the film was unfairly tarred with the same brush that derailed the director's career in Hollywood.