The noir policier formula gets turned on its head in this delicious tale of a frustrated bad lieutenant, Webb Garwood (Van Heflin), who answers a prowler call in a tony L.A. suburb and can't resist cozying up to the lonely and wealthy housewife he finds there. Evelyn Keyes's Susan Gilvray is the childless wife, yearning for something the oily Garwood is all too happy to supply, even as he morphs effortlessly from protector to predator, all the while obsessed with the upward mobility just out of his working-stiff grasp. Susan's radio DJ husband may be physically absent, but he is a constant presence on the living-room radio as Garwood schemes his way towards a life of plenty. Blacklisted Dalton Trumbo cowrote the script without screen credit, but he and Losey got the last laugh by casting Trumbo as the Big Brother–esque radio voice of Mr. Gilvray.