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DETOUR (1945) (****)

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This film shouldn’t work at all. The low production value is obvious. The film is filled with technical errors. The acting is all at one pitch. The plot on face value is contrived beyond belief. However, all of these issues work to make the film better. This is mainly true because it’s a film noir. The film is gritty, dirty and unkempt just like the genre.

Al Roberts (Tom Neal, ANOTHER THIN MAN) is the epitome of noir loser. The good guy who goes bad. He narrates the film like a whiner. He’s in love with Sue Harvey (Claudia Drake, THE RETURN OF RIN TIN TIN), a nightclub singer in New York. He’s her piano player. She tells him she’s moving to L.A., but he stays behind then later hitchhikes across the country to marry her.

He gets a ride from Charles Haskell Jr. (Edmund MacDonald, DESTRY RIDES AGAIN), a shady man traveling to L.A. to see his estranged father. Haskell tells a tale of a woman he picked up, who clawed his arm. Then Haskell dies of a heart attack and Al fears the cops won’t believe him, so he discards the body along the side of the road. Later he picks up a female hitchhiker named Vera (Ann Savage, JUNGLE JIM IN PYGMY ISLAND). She falls asleep and then bolts straight up and says, “What did you do with the body of the guy who owns this car?” It’s the dame with the claws that Haskell talked about.

Vera is the archetype of the female hellion. She doesn’t lure Al to his demise per se like a true femme fatale, but she sure pushes him in that direction. The plot is tight and the dialogue drips of pulp. “I'd hate to see a fellow as young as you wind up sniffin' that perfume Arizona hands out free to murderers!” Great line — Savage’s delivery is always acid.

In the voice over, Al talks about fate always sticking its foot out and tripping you up. From his tale, he’s had the worst luck any poor sap has ever had. It’s the most pessimistic view of life you’ll ever see in a movie. Now I’m going to discuss the duality of the film. There will be some SPOILERS so read on at your own risk.

First clue that the film is not just what it seems is that the film is from Al’s point of view. He tells the story in a tone like he desperately wants us to feel sorry for him. He sounds too guilty for an innocent man. The way Vera dies is completely ridiculous. It sounds made up. Is he trying to pull one over on us? He’s playing our heartstrings like a concert violinist.

The film came out in 1945. The “bad luck” and “evil twist of fate” of the Great Depression was still in the minds of Americans. His excuse that Haskell just died and he feared the cops would believe him is lame, but believable. But the credibility of Al’s tale breaks when he “accidentally” strangles Vera with a phone cord. This makes us look back over the entire film and see subtle hints that make us question Al’s story more.

If she loved him, why does Sue just leave Al to go to L.A.? Or even more so why doesn’t he just follow her right away? Why do we never hear Sue’s voice when Al calls her and tells her he is coming to California? Al makes a big deal about Haskell bumping his head when he opened the car door, why? Al’s description of Vera doesn’t really match reality, why? He has many opportunities to ditch Vera, so why doesn’t he? Looking back the whole thing seems made up by a desperate, dim man trying to plug every hole in his alibi.

Director Edgar G. Ulmer had to flee Germany when Hitler came to power. He had worked with F.W. Murnau on German Expressionist films. He brought that ascetic to his Hollywood work, which was sadly always B-movie fare. However, he often elevated his material above its B trappings. His THE BLACK CAT is considered a horror classic. Here is a film where style adds substance to something thin. The film plays with us on a gut level and haunts us. DETOUR shows us that a film doesn’t have to be perfect to be brilliant.

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Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks