Evening star., 1951-09-06

pening to every lass who innocently
yelps for the law when she dis
covers she has forgotten to pull
down the blinds and looks out the
window to find some one looking
right back in.
The screenplay for 1.-THE Prov
ler." which Hugo Butler wrote
from an original by Robert Thoer-
en- and Hans Wilhelm, is almost
pure James Cain. Its starts on a
sinister note of impending danger,
drags its leading characters
through tawdry love affair and
winds up with their inevitable
doom.
The young woman played by
Miss Keyes is probably fair game
for cinema sorrow. She gave up
trying to be an actress because of
a notable lack of talent. she eX-
plains at one point, and at the
outset of the film is wed to a
middle-aged disc jockey who leaves
her alone in a $4,000 hacienda
while he sells fruit and vegetables
on the radio until 4 am.
She is in a nervous state al
ready, out of lonesomenesS and
other things, when she spots that
prowler and lets out her cry for
the gendarmes. The cop played by
Hef1in recognizes her Immediately
as a girl with trim figure, latent
susceptibility and infinite posi-
bilitieS.
He is an ex-high school athlete
who seems to have believed his
publicity and who considers it
the fault of a hostile world that
he couldn't get along we'll enough
with a basketball coach to stay in
college on a scholarship. He hates
being a cop and he is out to get
his.
This doll in the high class
house, who would be quite a SOL
vent widow if any fatal accident
ever befell her wealthy disc jockey
husband. looks like his, all right,
to He1in's man. He wastes little
time in moving in. In not time at
all. these two are getting cozy in
the parlor nights while the be-
trayed husbands radio program
eurgles softly in the background,
so they'll know where he is.
X Y X x
This, of course, is state OF
affairs which can't go on and on
without something happening. to
break the daily routine. Director
Joseph Losey makes it quite a
suspenseful thing as he moves 1t
inexorably toward the explosion
you know is bound to come.
What ultimately happens, it
won't be giving away any secrets
TO tell you, is murder. all care
fully arranged to look like tragic
accident in the line of a police
mans duty.
He's a sly one, this cop played by
Hehin. He manages to get his
dolls now suspicious husband out
in the yard looking for prowler,
then plugs him. Even wings him
self in the arm with bullet from
the gun the dead man is holding.
which makes fine evidence at the
coroner's inquest.
He goes free. but it doesn't last,
of course. That would violate
both the Production Code and the
dramatic point THE Prowler"
makes in its unrelenting and bru-
tai fashion-that fate aboundS in
ironic tricks for perpetrating JUS
tice.
4 Xxx
The major burden of keeping
this sordid tale engrossing falls
to Miss Keyes and Mr.. Hehin and
they are quite equal to the task.
Miss Keyes is a woman of undeni-
able talent who is not above look
ing anguished rather than pretty
If it will get a point across.
In the Trans-Lux film she looks
anguished most of the time, to
be sure, but she makes completely
believable her protrait of woman
led by passion and her own weak
ness to the betrayal of her hus-
band. 1t isn't pretty picture, but
it's forceful one of a woman
who drives herself against her will
to her own ruin.
Hefin's picture Of a warped
man, willing to go to any ends
including the murder of a hus-