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TCM Party screens The Prowler as part of 'Summer of Darkness'

moviesJul 25, 202640579

Turner Classic Movies screened The Prowler (1951) as part of its Summer of Darkness lineup, running after Sunset Boulevard and alongside The Killing. The film stars Van Heflin and Evelyn Keyes and features the voice of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo as John, a late-night radio DJ. Viewers at the TCM watch-party highlighted the film's desert‑motel and abandoned‑town settings, a twisty plot built around adultery and murder, and a bleak ending that undermines the postwar myth of the noble policeman. Commenters singled out Van Heflin's role as an unexpected homme fatale, striking production details such as a grim flophouse room and a dramatic car shot, and a controversial sequence in which a birth occurs in a ghost town. The screening prompted fresh commentary and a longer essay on Night Tide Magazine dated July 23, 2026, framing The Prowler as an underappreciated, subversive noir. The showing reinforced TCM's Summer of Darkness theme by pairing a canonical Hollywood critique with a tougher, noir undercurrent and renewed attention to The Prowler's visual and moral harshness.