There's been a slew of bad cops in film noir, but none quite like Webb Garwood (Van Heflin) in "The Prowler." He's the cop no woman ever wants to call when she needs help. You might say he's a prowler cop, or better still a glorified stalker.
But alone at midnight in her big hacienda, and frightened by a possible peeping tom, it's Susan Gilvray's (Evelyn Keyes) fate to call for the police. This is Garwood's Entry. Cocky, smug, indifferent, intimidating, womanizing, his looming presence and prowess accentuated in the dead-of-night shadows by his tight-fitting black uniform, he comes on more like a sneaky Nazi than a law enforcer.
It's obvious that Garwood is not Frank Chambers (John Garfield) in "The Postman Always Rings Twice," whose single motive, despite the plot twists in the end, is to win over the beautiful wife of a much older, doddering, roadside burger joint owner. No Garwood here almost instantly sizes up the whole situation in a few minutes. His master plan is for the possession of a wife, the defeat of her rich, radio celeb husband, who he immediately names a wimp to his rescuing knight, and to seize from him the means of financing his dream Las Vegas motor court.
And unlike Frank Chambers, too, he gets no help at all from the young attractive wife. Susan Gilvray (Evelyn Keyes) here is the precise opposite of Lana Turner's femme fatale in "Postman." She is genuine inside and out and incapable of plotting her way out of her marriage. To boot, she is most powerfully herself whenever she sees through and stands strong against Garwood's wiles, intents, and lies. In fact, mostly her relationship with him is underwritten by varying degrees of resistance. If she's a pushover, a dupe, or ingratiating at times, it's either because her character mode has been switched over to plot mode., or because she's up against a man who is well-practiced in the arts of romantic deception, and masculine manipulation.
Garwood is not only in stark contrast to Susan, but to his police partner, Bud Crocker (John Maxwell), his wife Grace, Susan's in-laws, and almost all the characters he encounters. They're generous-spirited and almost saintly by comparison. But, ironically, it is he who lives in the Hotel Angela. Here he has a large muscle-builder poster on his wall (he drinks milk rather than booze), and a dominant black shooting target with a bullet-riveted torso from his champion sharp-shooter days. In this room, he lazes about in self-absorption, toys with his plots, as he does with things like shavers and phone receivers—and Susan herself, whose defeats he celebrates by tossing spitballs into the light globe above his bed, reminiscent of his heroic basketball days.
In short, he's a snark despite his expansive front. He peeps in Susan's windows, he repeatedly alarms her with his police search lights, and he pops into her life on the merest whim. She is nothing more to him than a conquest and a medium to defeat her prestigious husband. The murder he accomplishes and the one he attempts are both too vile for words. And when Susan utterly exposes him, this self-pitying bore can only answer: "I'm no worse than anyone else." In the end, unlike Frank Chamber's (Garfield) "dust you are" lover's death in the presence of a forgiving priest, Garwood gets buried ignominiously in dust. Susan, unlike Cora Smith (Turner), who dies along with her unborn baby, in a car accident, emerges from a traumatic childbirth with a new baby girl companion, the baby that Garwood assumed would be his son. Ha!
But alone at midnight in her big hacienda, and frightened by a possible peeping tom, it's Susan Gilvray's (Evelyn Keyes) fate to call for the police. This is Garwood's Entry. Cocky, smug, indifferent, intimidating, womanizing, his looming presence and prowess accentuated in the dead-of-night shadows by his tight-fitting black uniform, he comes on more like a sneaky Nazi than a law enforcer.
It's obvious that Garwood is not Frank Chambers (John Garfield) in "The Postman Always Rings Twice," whose single motive, despite the plot twists in the end, is to win over the beautiful wife of a much older, doddering, roadside burger joint owner. No Garwood here almost instantly sizes up the whole situation in a few minutes. His master plan is for the possession of a wife, the defeat of her rich, radio celeb husband, who he immediately names a wimp to his rescuing knight, and to seize from him the means of financing his dream Las Vegas motor court.
And unlike Frank Chambers, too, he gets no help at all from the young attractive wife. Susan Gilvray (Evelyn Keyes) here is the precise opposite of Lana Turner's femme fatale in "Postman." She is genuine inside and out and incapable of plotting her way out of her marriage. To boot, she is most powerfully herself whenever she sees through and stands strong against Garwood's wiles, intents, and lies. In fact, mostly her relationship with him is underwritten by varying degrees of resistance. If she's a pushover, a dupe, or ingratiating at times, it's either because her character mode has been switched over to plot mode., or because she's up against a man who is well-practiced in the arts of romantic deception, and masculine manipulation.
Garwood is not only in stark contrast to Susan, but to his police partner, Bud Crocker (John Maxwell), his wife Grace, Susan's in-laws, and almost all the characters he encounters. They're generous-spirited and almost saintly by comparison. But, ironically, it is he who lives in the Hotel Angela. Here he has a large muscle-builder poster on his wall (he drinks milk rather than booze), and a dominant black shooting target with a bullet-riveted torso from his champion sharp-shooter days. In this room, he lazes about in self-absorption, toys with his plots, as he does with things like shavers and phone receivers—and Susan herself, whose defeats he celebrates by tossing spitballs into the light globe above his bed, reminiscent of his heroic basketball days.
In short, he's a snark despite his expansive front. He peeps in Susan's windows, he repeatedly alarms her with his police search lights, and he pops into her life on the merest whim. She is nothing more to him than a conquest and a medium to defeat her prestigious husband. The murder he accomplishes and the one he attempts are both too vile for words. And when Susan utterly exposes him, this self-pitying bore can only answer: "I'm no worse than anyone else." In the end, unlike Frank Chamber's (Garfield) "dust you are" lover's death in the presence of a forgiving priest, Garwood gets buried ignominiously in dust. Susan, unlike Cora Smith (Turner), who dies along with her unborn baby, in a car accident, emerges from a traumatic childbirth with a new baby girl companion, the baby that Garwood assumed would be his son. Ha!