Detour

Edward G. Ulmer’s 1945 film noir, Detour, is one of the great B-movies of all time. Filmed in black and white on a shoestring budget in a matter of days with no name stars, it is one of the purest distillations of film noir there is. Like all film noirs, it’s the story of a morally ambiguous protagonist who runs into the wrong woman at the wrong time and the universe just seems to be against him. There is no happy ending, just the question of how wrong things can go before either the law catches up with him or the movie ends, whichever comes first. 

Actor and former amateur boxer Tom Neal stars as Al Roberts, a bitter would-be musician, whose lounge singer girlfriend leaves New York for Los Angeles to pursue fame and fortune. The shot of Al walking away from her in the fog once she’s made her decision with only the white globe of the streetlight visible in the gloom is atmospheric and very noir-ish but also an example of how the film’s low budget affected its aesthetic. No need to build a set if all you need is fog and a street lamp.

Once she’s gone, Al turns into even more of a sad-sack, lamenting all the could’ve’s and should’ves. He decides he’s going to do something with his life and join her on the west coast. But because he’s broke, he has to hitchhike. He gets picked up by a shady, misogynist bookie who is also heading to LA, and everything seems great until the bookie is accidentally killed. Al, instead of calling the cops or looking for help, hides the body, takes the bookie’s car, wallet and identity, and takes off for LA.

The story really picks up steam with the appearance of Vera, a hard-bitten hitchhiker who finds her way into Al’s stolen car. Played by Ann Savage, Vera is all sneering venom, greed, and anger. She figures out quickly that Al isn’t who he says he is and from then on it’s a cat-and-mouse game with Vera very much in the cat role. It’s not a nuanced performance but it punches you right in the face, and nuance isn’t always required.

The two become locked in a roundabout of blackmail, suspicion, betrayal, and self-hatred as they hurtle towards Los Angeles. The ongoing banter and battle between Al’s sad sack victim versus Vera’s white hot tough girl is immensely entertaining, and their acidic relationship builds and builds until all that acid boils over.

Detour is famous for its B-picture status, and there are plenty of myths about its production. The director once said that the entire movie was filmed in six days, and the popular legend is that the budget was around 20 grand. However, research reveals the movie was probably made over the course of four weeks, shooting on a budget of about a hundred thousand dollars. That sounds like a lot but by comparison, that same year the Bing Crosby vehicle The Bells of Saint Mary’s was made with a budget of 1.3 million. So the production quality of the Detour looks more like a hundred cents. Cheap rear projection, silly editing mistakes, and sets that look like cardboard at times are all part of the Detour experience.

The film did well enough at the box office at the time and then fell into semi-regular late night rotation on TV. It was in the 70s and 80s that Detour began to be appreciated as a prime example of film noir. Tom Neal and Edward Ulmer both died in the early 70s, but Ann Savage, Vera herself, happily did live appearances in relation to the film well into her 80s.

Detour fell into public domain years ago and is easy to find on Youtube. If you have an hour and seven minutes and feel like a bracing blast of 1940s B-movie darkness and paranoia, Detour is just a click away.