AVAILABLE AT LAST ON DVD! Famed director Joseph Losey's long
neglected masterpiece, scripted by legendary blacklisted
screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, has been restored to its original
bleak splendor by the Film Noir Foundation and the UCLA Film &
Television Archive. A nefarious cop stalks a lonely, repressed
Los Angeles housewife and decides to win her in the traditional
film noir fashion - by knocking off her husband! Bonus Features:
Documentary featurette "The Cost of Living: Creating The
Prowler," with James Ellroy, Christopher Trumbo, Denise Hamilton
and Alan K. Rode, "Masterpiece in the Margins": Bertrand
Tavernier on The Prowler, On the Prowl: Restoring The Prowler.
The Film Noir Foundation and UCLA Film & Television Archive
Partnership, Photo Gallery, Audio Commentary by Film Noir Expert
Eddie Muller, Original Theatrical Trailer Product Specs: DVD9;
Dolby Digital 2.0; RT - 92 minutes; B&W; Aspect Ratio - 1.37:1 -
4x3; Year - 1951; SRP - $19.99
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Joseph Losey's The Prowler is one of the darkest and
most daring entries in the film noir pantheon, a thriller that
challenges the accepted notions of not only screen morals but the
very fabric of America in its gritty story of a rogue cop who
brings disaster to a Los Angeles housewife. Van Heflin is the
patrolman who becomes fixated on Evelyn Keyes (wife of producer
Sam Spiegel's partner, John Huston) after a run-in with a peeping
Tom. Greed, lust, and loneliness bind the pair together, with
only Keyes's radio-personality husband (Emerson Treacy) standing
in the way of their unholy union. Heflin's plot to eliminate this
roadblock leads The Prowler into very unsavory territory,
including sexual obsession, pregnancy out of wedlock,
psychological terrorism, and finally, an inexorable dalliance
with mental instability. Though The Prowler's flirtations with
taboo breaking have made it a favorite among noir cognoscenti
(including James Ellroy, whose hot-blooded comments are featured
throughout the disc), the film's most subversive element is its
looking-glass take on society as a whole; the intense pressures
that come with the pursuit of the American dream produce not
winners in Losey's eyes, but sociopaths who tear down everyone
around them as they attempt to claw their way towards the
promised Good Life. It's heady stuff, delivered in flinty visuals
by blacklist victims Losey and screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, billed
here as Hugo Butler, and most definitely required viewing for
those with a taste for the seamier side of crime cinema. The
wealth of extras on VCI's disc follow the film's resurrection
from "lost" status to restoration by the UCLA Film Archive and
The Film Noir Foundation; the picture's production history, which
was marked by financial clashes between Trumbo and Spiegel, is
also discussed by Ellroy and Trumbo's son, Christopher, among
others, while director Bertrand Tavernier (The Princess of
Montpensier) gives a thoughtful, largely academic take on the
picture. An original trailer and glimpses of the film's racy
pressbook round out the superlative presentation. --Paul Gaita