The Prowler - 1951 - Joseph Losey

Groucho Marx once quipped, "Sincerity is everything. If you can fake that, you've got it made."

Van Heflin's two most memorable roles were as uber-sincere men in: The Strange Love of Martha Ivers and Shane.

In The Prowler, on the other hand, Heflin plays a guy who is great at playing the role of or effectively mimicking a sincere man - maybe a self-referential gibe initiated by director Joseph Losey at Van Heflin's screen reputation.

Like most film noir classics, there are flaws. There are bizarre coincidences which would never have happened in real life, for example. But that's film noir - bizarre coincidence is part of the genre.

An entertaining film, well worth seeing.

See the movie here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2H18tQyQgE

Dangerous Moonlight - 1941 - Brian Desmond Hurst

One of the better love stories from World War II.

See the film here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfzqIKip-9k

To Catch a Thief by Hitchcock 1955 - Cary Grant / Grace Kelly

This film really highlights what I like the most about Hitchcock films - there's lots of lots of subtle social criticism and observations through his films that are somewhat peripheral to the plot but fit into the plot nonetheless.

For instance I enjoyed the Cary Grant character's veiled attack against the insurance industry - calling it a collection of gamblers. The fact that many of the characters in the film fought in the recent world war is referenced a great deal as well and the characters themselves seem ambivalent as to whether they were heroes or butchers.

A restaurateur states, at one point, that he runs his kitchen the way he ran his resistance unit during the war and that the processes are similar - cutting, chopping, killing...

So the backgrounds of Hitchcock films are very rich with thought-provoking elements.

The problem with this version of the film I am putting here is that there is a commercial every 8 minutes. You can cancel the commercial after 5 seconds, however.