The Boy with Green Hair (1948), Joseph Losey's first feature, was a social allegory quite unlike any American film before it; by 1951, the U.S. had lost Losey to Britain, after he was blacklisted by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. Throughout his career, Losey remained a supreme cinematic stylist whose intense themes were efficiently and often magnificently reflected in setting and composition. Issues of identity are primary concerns of Losey's films, and the theme of the “other,” a modified Doppleganger theme, pops up in odd ways, as in the Faustian master-servant struggle in The Servant, or the Jew-Gentile relationship in Mr. Klein. In The Prowler, a low-budget American thriller that is a masterpiece of the genre, it takes the form of a policeman who gradually becomes the lurking predator of the film's title. Van Heflin portrays the cop who is called to check out the home of a woman (Evelyn Keyes) who suspects a prowler on the premises. No prowler there, but only the unhappy wife of a very wealthy man; the policeman finds her attractive in person and pocketbook. He lingers, leaves, and returns to lie in wait for the husband. Losey's direction is taut and the art direction fine--especially in the Spanish-style home that rises out of the black night to trap three people desperate for love and money. The screenplay is co-written by Dalton Trumbo, another blacklisted artist.