Detour (1945)

Suspense as startling as a strangled scream! This is it, the defining motion picture in all of "film noir," written by Academy Award-nominee Martin Goldsmith (The Narrow Margin) and directed by legendary B-movie maker Edgar G. Ulmer (Daughter of Dr. Jekyll, The Black Cat). Tom Neal (The Brute Man, The Pride of the Yankees), handsome 1940's leading man, brings to thrilling life a down-on-his-luck nightclub performer who takes one wrong turn and picks up the meanest femme fatale in all of "noir," played to perfection by the incomparable Ann Savage (The Dark Horse, The Spider) in one of the most powerful and riveting performances ever recorded on celluloid.

Highway to Hell. DVD Comments.

It's a short movie see but not short on thrills. It's gotta be short cause like you out there watching our poor guy Al Roberts doesn't have time either. Time; That's just what he'll be doing if the fuzz get wise to what's happened.
Al is a talented and going no where fast piano player. He's a good guy the kind you only see in old movies, but this isn't just an old movie it's a film noir. Why name it noir? To make it arty. I guess it's better then film black which is what the future is looking here for good ole Al.
So why such negativity bub? If Al's on the up and up. Well his girl is sick of the night club scene see, so instead of marrying Al she's doing the opposite literally and heading to L.A.
Al needs his girl bad so he's heading to L.A but the only bad he's got is luck and plenty of it. A ride he hitches ends up hitching a ride to the pearly gates during a rain storm leaving Al looking responsible, he comes up with a plan but like all plans things happen. One of those things is Vera a tough as nails girl who sees through Al like a window; kind of like a rear window, which fits like a glove seeing Al is like a wrong man framed out of an old Hitchcock flick. He's not the wrong man though or do we have it all wrong? Talk about when it rains it pours, better put on your overcoat it's going to be a bumpy ride.

That was fun and so is this film noir. It's all about the dialogue in these films and this one has it. It doesn't take a wrong turn in this fast paced hour and 7 mins full of thrills.
Very highly recommended. One of the most enjoyable noirs I've ever seen.

DVD
As for the dvd. It doesn't have any special features. I didn't expect much from the picture but it wasn't all that bad, however at certain parts it does mess up a bit. All and all for the price and the quality of the movie it's worth it. June 22, 2008

How to make a movie for nine dollars...

This is the ultimate Grade Z film noir, and a great primer on how to make a no-budget film. The whole thing is as fascinating to watch for the way it was filmed and put together as it is to watch the story unfold. A couple of great performances from nobodies, an object lesson on why you should NEVER assume a dead guys identity, and an almost Grecian sense of fate and tragedy. This holds up as well as Gun Crazy, as there are parts of both movies that seem so electrifyingly contemporary that it is startling. Buy a copy for yourself, and get a couple for your friends... April 25, 2008

"You know, there oughta be a law against dames with claws!" Al Roberts (Tom Neal) couldn't agree more

"That's life," says two-bit loser Al Roberts. "Whichever way you turn, Fate sticks out a foot to trip you." Roberts, played by Tom Neal, is the whining, complaining protagonist in Detour, one of the worst, and best, pulp noirs you'll ever enjoy. And if Roberts doesn't have a good moment in any of the film's 67 minutes, you will if you get a kick out of pulp fiction so ripe it'll remind you of how old Charles Haskell's corpse is. Roberts, a piano player in a New York nightclub, was hitch hiking to L.A. to reunite with the woman he loves, his girlfriend Sue. When Haskell stops and gives him a ride, then dies of a heart attack, Roberts makes the first of many bad decisions. Haskell had several hundred in his wallet and three big, raw scratches on one hand. Wouldn't you know it, after ditching the body, taking the cash, the car and Haskell's identity, Roberts winds up stopping to pick up a hitchhiker...who turns out to be the dame who gave Haskell those scratches. "Man, she looked like she'd just been thrown off the crummiest freight train in the world," Roberts says. We can see for ourselves. Vera (Ann Savage) is tough as nails. She's a tramp. She's poison. She knows Roberts isn't Haskell. She sets a hook in Roberts' mouth and pulls him around from one scheme to the next to get money. When Roberts finally resists...well, see the movie.

How can a film be so bad yet be so satisfying? It was shot by Edgar Ulmer in only six days on a tiny budget and looks it. Ulmer probably paid more for all that rear screen projection than he did for the actors. Neal and Savage are barely even B-level quality. The movie is hardly more than an hour long. And yet...

First, the movie moves quickly. There is absolutely no wasted time, even when Ulmer is padding out a few shots. Second, Tom Neal is perfectly cast. He has a petulant, greasy face and a plump, weak mouth. Neal was not a sympathetic or likable actor. In what career he had, which wasn't much, he usually was at his best whining or playing bullies. Here, he's just weak. His career was effectively over when he beat Franchot Tone nearly to a pulp over a bimbo actress named Barbara Payton. A few years later he married and then was accused of murdering his wife with a gunshot to the head. He spent several years in prison on a manslaughter conviction and died of a heart attack a few months after he was released. Not much to admire here. Ann Savage is so over the top as the tough Vera that we sometimes do a double take over how she handles her dialogue. Still, the two of them, perhaps inadvertently, do full justice to the concept of Detour as full-bodied pulp fiction. Third, the script is great. Pulp, when it works, is sleazy, dirty entertainment. That's Detour. Neal and Savage make this fatalistic pulp cartoon vivid, not by how skilled they are, but by how well they meet the conventions of pulp action. Fourth, let's hear it for Edgar Ulmer. Some of Ulmer's films -- Strange Illusion, The Strange Woman, for example -- are fun to watch but none of them, in my view, are worth spending too much time thinking about. Like Val Lewton, Ulmer was a man of limited talent who could sometimes squeeze more interest out of so little to work with that one has to admire his persistence. He certainly sets up Vera's fate with style, even though Roberts' fate seems perfunctory to me.

No one, I hope, would call Detour a great film. In my opinion, it's not even a great noir. But it succeeds as great pulp fiction. When that highway comes on the screen, when we see the credits and when we start to hear Al Robert's voice-over, we know we're in for a cheap, sleazy ride...and an entertaining one, too.

Detour is in the public domain, so it's buyer beware. The DVD I have is watchable. I've heard that the version put out by Image is in fairly good shape. January 13, 2008

A good movie

"Detour" is about a night club piano player who hitchikes his way to California to be with the woman he loves. Along the way a series of unfortunate events happen to him and he becomes trapped in a vicious cycle to cover what has happened. He also has the unfortunate idea to be kind an offer a woman hitchiker a ride. This woman proves to be more trouble than he ever bargained for. So then continues his desperate attempt to cover his tracks and get out of the mess he has gotten himself into. But, to no avail.

The film is very well made. Ann Savage is phenomenal in her portrayal of the femme fatale. Tom Neal is excellent about playing a down-on-his-luck man that becomes entagled in a game of cover up. The characters are compelling and the movie is well directed. It is an enjoyable film. It is definately not my favorite movie and, as others have done, will not call it a masterpiece...there is still something a bit comeplling about this movie...the acting. the film is well portrayed. I did not really like the voiceovers throughout the movies, but the acting itself was really good.

Although the movie is good, the transfer to DVD or electronic download is horrible. The film skips and the reel shakes (or whatever the term is). I only hope that this movie could be properly restored. November 19, 2007

HAHA

I had to respond to all the reviews saying that this movie is masterfully done. This is a great movie only because it's so incredibly terrible. It's funny, it's cliche, and it's definitely not great film noir. I once watched this movie in a college film class as the teacher's joke. I just wanted to straighten that out before I say that I still love this movie because of its obvious low budget bad production and funny antics that are supposed to be dramatic, like when the two lovers are walking through the street and the director pans up at the street lamp and then down again at the couple about 5 times for dramatic effect and it really just comes off as something that would happen in a spoof. If you're out for a good laugh, this is a great movie to give it. If you really want to watch the pinnacle of great film noir, watch Out of the Past or my personal favorite, Touch of Evil. November 9, 2007

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