Leofwine_draca
I'm not as fond of DETOUR as some of the other reviewers on here, purely because I found it an entirely depressing viewing experience. It's one of the darkest film noirs out there, leaden with a dreadful atmosphere throughout, full of foreboding, darkness, and misery. And I guess those are the reasons why it's so well remembered.The film is directed by THE BLACK CAT director Edgar G. Ulmer in much the same way he would direct one of his horror pictures. Tom Neal makes for a rather unlikeable hero, trying desperate to hitch-hike from one end of the country to the other and coming unstuck when he falls in with a seemingly friendly driver. He takes a chance and thinks he's made it when in fact he's just about to meet Ann Savage's Vera.Savage is the stand-out feature of this film and I hated every element of her angry, vengeful, selfish character. She's the worst femme fatale I've ever seen, a noxious character utterly devoid of redeeming features, to the degree that I found the movie hard to watch whenever she was around (which is most of the time). I admit that I thought the climax was excellent given what's come previously, although the only thing I came away from this feeling was relief, relief that it was over.
Mike Bozart
If you have a friend or family member who asks you, "What on earth is film noir?" Show them this movie. It has all of the hallmarks of a great noir flick: deceit, blackmail, twisted love, very unfortunate circumstances, unforeseen tragedy; and it is shot in low-budget black-and-white with minimal yet atmospheric sets. However, it all works most wonderfully, or uber-suspensefully. Detour, unlike many other fine noir films, has breathtaking pace; it doesn't stall or get mired in overly clever - or hopelessly cryptic - dialogue. That's not to say that the dialogue is on the cheap or not sharp; why, it certainly is. The weave of action and dialogue is just perfect: It's not a run of garish violence or verbose mega-star monologues. In fact, I think I'll watch it again tonight. Oh, BTW, I stumbled upon Detour on a Friday night in the mid-80s. It was featured on that old Night Flight series. I've been hooked on film noir ever since. Enjoy!
mgtbltp
A shoestring 67 minute production that effectively distilled 100 proof Noir.While the credits roll we see the desolate landscape of the desert from a vehicle barreling down a two lane highway, What's unusual about this barren landscape is that we are driving away from it. The scenery is passing us and receding into the distance, we are leaving what we know behind and we don't know what lies ahead. We are on a Detour and speeding towards oblivion, a Detour that's a metaphor for Destiny. The Destiny of one Al the Piano Player, late of the Break o' Dawn Club, Upper West Side Manhattan. Al had a steady gig tickling the ivories of the coffin with a bunch of hep cats in a combo, nightly at the Break O' Dawn Club, a smoke choked West side hole in the wall lounge. What made it bearable was Sue the cute peroxide canary, a real looker, and love of his life, as Al put it, he was a healthy American male and she was a healthy American babe and they had a healthy romantic relationship. One night as the club is closing Al, smoking like a Con-Ed stack, is pounding out a classical tune solo while waiting for Sue to change. When she arrives she tells him that" he'll make it to Carnegie Hall someday," he snaps back cynically, "Sure, as a janitor. Maybe I'll make my debut in the basement, Yeah, someday if I don't get arthritis first." He closes the fallboard and with a cigarette sticking to his lower lip declares "Let's blow this trap." As they walk uptown through the Hudson River fog (a clever low budget sequence that show just the tops of passing street signs sticking up through the dry ice fog) Sue gives Al the brush, she tells him that she wants a shot at the Big Time, Hollywood, Tinseltown. For Al, life without Sue makes him feel blue and dejected, playing for the café society patrons nets him an occasional ten spot tip. After a few months he decides to blow, he calls Sue from the club's phone booth and finds out that she's a waitress slinging hash in a beanery. Al tells her that he'll be right out, but he doesn't tell that he has no bread and will have to hitch. In Arizona he gets picked up by a pill popping bookie driving a 41' Lincoln convertible, name of Charlie Haskell, and he's traveling from New Orleans to LA. It's Al's lucky day, or is it? As they speed across the desert Charlie asks Al to get him the box of pills in the glove box, he does this a few more times apparently Charlie has some ailment. In the evening after buying Al a meal at a truckstop, Al notices some fresh scars above Charlie's wrist as he drives down the highway. Charlie notices Al looking, and tells him that a crazy broad he picked up gave them to him. A few hours later Charlie asks Al to drive. As Al tools along, in a nice noir stylistic sequence we see Al's eyes through the rearview mirror which segues into what is Al's last happy memory. We see Sue singing "their song" against a backdrop of shadow musicians. It's late night, Al is beginning to fall asleep at the wheel, we see his head nodding. A few sprinkles soon turns into a downpour. Al pulls over, they have to put up the top, he tries to wake Charlie who is unresponsive. Al gets out, and goes around to the passenger side, he opens the door and Charlie's dead body slumps out of the seat and caves his head in on a boulder. Al just bought a one way ticket to Noirsville. Al panics in genuine fear and desperation, he reasons that dressed they way he is and with no scratch in his pockets the cops will tag him for Charlie's murder, they'll never believe his story of what actually happened. Al decides to drag Charlie into the bottom of a gully, grab his wallet, assume his identity and toss his own suitcase and wallet down in with Charlie. He'll take the 700 clams and drive the car to LA then sell it. Al pulls off at the next motel and gets a room, the next morning he's showered, shaved, and dressed in Charlie's clothes. Back on the road to LA, Al stops to add water to the radiator. He sees a woman, Vera, (Ann Savage) standing at the side of the road hitching and yells out to her, even though "she looks like she just got thrown off the crummiest freight train in the world". Deciding to give her a lift, that ticket to Noirsville just got upgraded to express. Vera looks like she was ridden hard and put away wet, greasy dirty blond hair, rumpled and stained sweater and skirt, a lot of rough miles on her chassis. She's quite at first almost stone like but turns verbally ferocious practically spitting and hissing her razor sharp dialog, your worst nightmare a 24 year old Medusa who will turn your heart to stone. Savage is, quite possibly, the most terrifyingly vicious Femme Fatale of Classic Noir. Vera's arrival brings the film to a whole new level Vera also brings one of the greatest Noir twists to the plot of Detour, if you thought it couldn't get any worse for Al, your in for a shock. Detour, a "Poverty-Row" production was shot on a few cheap sets in 6 days. But it was a flare at the end of a dark tunnel showing a way to other cash strapped film-makers to make something out of nothing. Music by Leo Erdody, Sound engineer Max Hutchinson. a 9/10
