Evelyn Keyes

The Killer That Stalked New York

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Landlady and Sheila

You don’t need to know that the smallpox vaccine was first developed in 1796 but it adds a layer to The Killer That Stalked New York, a pandemic thriller from 1950 inspired by a real-life outbreak of smallpox in New York in 1947. That it did not become more widespread is thanks to thanks to swift action on the part of the authorities, who rolled out a massive vaccination campaign. Evelyn Keyes plays our Patient Zero, Sheila Bennet, a woman newly in from Cuba, where she picked up smallpox though she doesn’t yet know it. She also picked up something else: a consignment of hot diamonds, intending to smuggle them into the USA … Read more

The Face behind the Mask

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Janos/Johnny in his mask

Playing the child murderer in Fritz Lang’s M bought Peter Lorre his ticket to Hollywood, where he soon tired of playing exotics and weirdos. He was already Hollywood’s go-to creep when he made The Face behind the Mask in 1941. It follows a naive watchmaker who arrives in New York off the boat from old Europe, gets horrifically burned in a hotel fire, then, unable to get work on account of his looks, embarks on a life of crime to pay for reconstructive surgery. Both a wild gothic-crime story and an an invitation to overact, Lorre gives it both barrels. The story gets wilder once Janos discovers that surgery will be impossible. Instead, … Read more

The Prowler

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Mrs Gilvray opens the door to cop Webb Garwood

“A masterpiece of sexual creepiness” – writer James Ellroy’s verdict on 1951’s The Prowler, a film that gave two good actors roles of a lifetime and which languished in the pit of obscurity until it was rescued by a restoration in 2011. The “sexual creepiness” arrives early on. Married woman Susan Gilvray (Evelyn Keyes) calls the cops after seeing what she thinks is a prowler outside her window, peeking at her as she got out of the bath. The cops turn up. No one there. Or is there? One of the policemen, Webb Garwood (Van Heflin), has taken an instant interest in Mrs Gilvray and he returns later that evening, ostensibly just to … Read more