Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

RanchoTuVu Webb Garwood (Van Heflin), a dissatisfied LA police patrol officer, answers a call about a prowler with his partner, "Bud" Crocker (John Maxwell), a desert enthusiast who explores abandoned mining towns along the desert drive from LA to Las Vegas. Susan Gilvray (Evelyn Keyes) had been in the bathroom of her upscale home when she spotted a prowler peaking through the window. Heflin's Garwood sizes her up and returns later to put the make on her. She's married to local radio personality who's at least twice her age, and it doesn't take long for her to fall for Heflin. It's a hard decision to make between who's better, Heflin or Keyes. Heflin had the capacity to play the cowardly types up against the macho man's world of the postwar better than any actor ever. And Keyes excels in each scene along her route of discovery of Heflin's true nature. The entire affair between him and Susan is extremely sordid for 1951, but the director, Joseph Losey and the studio, Eagle, were camped far out on film noir's fringe.

LeonLouisRicci Not widely seen for Years, this newly Restored Film-Noir has not disappointed Fans and is now considered a Strong Entry in the Genre.Due to some effectively heavy Indictments about Capitalism and Class Envy. There is also an "Out of Wedlock" Pregnancy, not just Hinted at but is dead Central to the Plot . Add on top of that there's the Peeping Tom Perversion, and things are Not like a Normal Night at the Cinema.It has Strong, deeply Flawed Characters caught in their own Web of Adultery, Greed, and Lust. The Doomed Couple try and Escape the confines of the City as Their Fate Propels Them for wide Open Spaces and even though the attempt is to avoid Persecution and Prosecution, They End up in a cave-like mining shaft that certainly will allow No Breathing Room.This may not be as Stylish as some Noirs but it makes up for it with a Bleak Sociological Tone and a Somber, Desperate Pair of Lovers. The Tension never lets up and there are only very brief Moments of Reprieve. The Newlyweds have No Future, just like the Director (Losey) and Screenwriter (Trumbo) who were either Blacklisted at the Time or soon to be. There were few happy endings in the HUAC Witch Hunt and Film-Noir.

evening1 Van Hefflin stirs paranoia as an odd, bored cop who takes a liking to a neglected wife on his beat and ends up bedding her, killing her husband, and marrying her, then whisking her off to a ghost town where she can have their baby in secret.Evelyn Keyes is also good as the at-first hard-to-get, then desperately clingy unfaithful woman. This naive, repressed woman paints herself into an unenviable corner by lying for her lover on the stand then pleading for their baby's life when she realizes the child's due date will reveal their affair.I actually felt for this neurotic, amoral couple as they played house in their dusty hideaway. A sense of foreboding grew as one thought about Heflin's character being responsible for delivering a baby amid coyote howls and drifting tumbleweed. This film conjures Zola's "Therese Raquin" as the lovers turn on each other. In all, a surprisingly good, and creepy, thriller.---------------------------------------------------------------- "So I'm no good...I'm no worse than anyone else!"-------------------------

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.