Reviews Aug 06 2008 @ 07:00 am
REVIEW: Detour
Directed By: Edgar G. Ulmer
Written By: Martin Goldsmith
Starring: Tom Neal, Ann Savage, Claudia Drake, Edmund McDonald
Running Time: 67 minutes
Not Rated
Detour is the sort of film that can’t help but elicit strong reactions from viewers, and having seen it twice now, I’ll confess that I’ve reacted to it both ways. The first time I watched it, three years ago, I remember being alternately bored and annoyed. What did people see in this movie? It was short, cheap, and nihilistic. But as I re-watched it for this review, all I could do was wonder what I had been thinking the first time around. How could I not love this? It was short, cheap, and nihilistic!
But regardless of my relatively insignificant reaction to it, Detour is simply a film whose influence on noir as a movement is impossible to overestimate. As a production of “Poverty Row” studio PRC (which, at the time, was rumored to stand for Pretty Rotten Crap), it established noir as primarily a low-budget phenomenon (while I’ll admit there’s no shortage of exceptions to this rule). Its low budget (a mere $20,000) forced schlock auteur Edgar G. Ulmer (who, aside from this, is known primarily for the bargain-basement Lugosi/Karloff horror flick The Black Cat) to use some intensely haphazard lighting and in-camera special effects, cementing noir’s quick-and-dirty aesthetic. Finally, Detour’s focus on average schmoes would foreshadow noir’s migration from cops, gangsters and private dicks to more mundane characters that were simply doomed by fate. It’s an intense, visceral film, fascinating and repulsive—raw around the edges, and yet, somehow, meticulously crafted.
Our narrator.
The story is told in flashback, with a voiceover that flirts with comedy in its utter seriousness. (It’s hard to say whether this is a tragicomedy or a mere tragedy; the proceedings are all quite silly, of course, but they’re played so earnestly by the cast that you never can tell whether or not they’re at all aware of this fact. This is partly why I hated the movie the first time around, and partly why I loved it upon the second viewing.) Tom Neal stars as Al Roberts, a pianist in a small-time New York City bar with dreams of marrying its singer Sue (Claudia Drake) and playing Carnegie Hall. When she leaves him to pursue a career in Hollywood, he chases after her, hitchhiking across the country. He gets picked up by a gambler named Charles Haskell (Edmund MacDonald), who treats him well, until Haskell suffers a heart attack on a lonely road in the middle of the night. Roberts, realizing that no cop will believe that he’d died on his own, buries the body, steals his clothes and his car, and begins posing as him.
This all goes pretty well, until he picks up a hitchhiker named Vera (Ann Savage, more than living up to her surname). They make small talk briefly, until Vera falls asleep. Then, as the camera follows in front of the car, we hear Roberts’ voiceover again, narrating—and suddenly, Vera’s eyes snap open.
“Where’d you hide his body?” she demands.
Vera and Al, looking more civil than usual.
It’s at this point that Vera makes her intentions known—she rode with Haskell, she knows that Roberts isn’t him, and she intends to blackmail him. The two spend the greater part of the rest of the film holed up in a small Hollywood apartment, Roberts being held prisoner by Vera, and Vera refusing to leave for fear that Roberts might escape. It’s then that the themes of Detour become apparent: this is a film entirely about fate. Roberts is doomed because of his weakness; Vera is doomed because of her strength. Somehow, their paths have crossed, and they’ve come to a point where they’re vainly using each other to put off a fate they both can’t avoid (and which has colored the proceedings—literally—from the first frame).
Detour is, in fact, a tragedy of the highest order, and is made all the more tragic when it becomes clear that its hero has survived the events it recounts—and continues to exist as a hollow shell of a man. He can’t return to New York, since he’s presumed dead; he can’t return to L.A. since the cops are looking for Haskell; and he can’t even face his fiancée, “knowing what I’ve done.” This is the essence of noir—a man caught between identities, caught between societal standards and his own actions, lost in the futility of existence. The last 30 seconds undermine this completely (they had to tack on an ending to meet the Hays Production Code), but up until that point, Detour is a relentlessly brilliant film.
on Aug 06 2008 @ 7:19 am 1. G said …
I watched this for the first time yesterday, and my reaction was somewhere in between your two reactions. Not to give anything away: the film’s second death was one of the most absurd and contrived things I have ever seen. But I can also understand how, in the right moods, I could consider that part of its charms.
Anyway, I didn’t mind the nihilism or even the cheapness. And I love shot movies. But it still felt half-formed to me, like they had a few ideas, didn’t know where they were going, and didn’t really know how to pull off what they wanted to do. On the other hand, there were some very nice touches – I particularly liked when Al said things would be different between him and Vera if this were a story: a nice self-reflexive touch that makes it fit in with the works of Chandler and Hammett.
on Aug 06 2008 @ 7:36 am 2. Luke Harrington said …
I understand where you’re coming from. It really is a film that watches better if you know where it’s going…it gives you a chance to appreciate Ulmer’s meticulous craft. And the whole thing was shot in six (!) days.
on Aug 06 2008 @ 7:41 am 3. Cinexcellence said …
Ees a short one. I should be watching it soon.
on Aug 06 2008 @ 7:46 am 4. Sam Juliano said …
Ulmer’s reputation as a B director was forged with his direction of THE BLACK CAT, (which you note here in your review), a film that has increased in reputation through the years to the level of a minor classic. DETOUR, his second film to develop a “cult” reputation is now seen as a film of considerable skill, largely for the reasons you eloquently pose. I am not surprised at your initial reaction—DETOUR is a film that hits its mark on repeated viewings. I agree with the 4 and a half star rating, and I think you have served this minor classic well here, both in your recap and your treatment of the film’s cinematic underpinnings.
on Aug 06 2008 @ 8:40 am 5. Evan Derrick said …
I admit I haven’t seen this, but in all my reading Detour consistently comes up as one of the early noir-defining films, more so than any of the films we’ve profiled so far (except for Double Indemnity). Its low budget, its grittiness, its super B-movie sensibility – these are some of the major characteristics that noir was built upon.
Excellent essay here, Luke.
on Aug 06 2008 @ 10:42 am 6. Whitney said …
Luke, I think it watches better the more familiar you are with noir, too. It becomes ridiculous in how many genre conventions it follows so perfectly. Ridiculous is a totally fabulous way.
on Aug 06 2008 @ 10:50 am 7. Luke Harrington said …
Well, strictly speaking, it doesn’t “follow” them — it invented them.
James Whale’s Frankenstein almost plays like a comedy now for the same reason — every horror flick since has followed the conventions that it created.
on Aug 06 2008 @ 1:08 pm 8. Alexander Coleman said …
Good review, Luke, I remember not liking this all that much way back when I first saw it (I believe I was twelve?), but since then it has continually grown on me. It’s an ugly film in more ways than one, but it has many charms. Some French critics who praised it found that second death G speaks of as a tremendous asset. It’s convoluted, freakish and absurd, which is precisely why it’s perfect.
Ulmer’s films are certainly worth a look. Beyond The Black Cat, I like his gothic noir with Hedy Lamarr and George Sanders The Strange Woman.
on Aug 06 2008 @ 1:37 pm 9. Rick Olson said …
I’m shocked that nobody mentioned the terrible acting. Was it designed to be funny? Ann Savage is savagely bad, and Neal gives wooden a whole new meaning, even by mannered 30s & 40s standards.
And G’s right — the second killing was a joke.
on Aug 06 2008 @ 1:49 pm 10. Alexander Coleman said …
I was tempted to bring up the rotten acting, but as something of a bizarre benefit. Not quite like Ryan O’Neal in Barry Lyndon, though.
I can completely understand why the acting would turn people off, though. It’s quite bad indeed.
on Aug 06 2008 @ 1:50 pm 11. Luke Harrington said …
I briefly touch on that in my third paragraph. Shrug.
Watching Detour, it’s not hard to see where the Coens got the bulk of Fargo…some people come away thinking, “What a crushing tragedy,” and others walk away thinking “What a goofy comedy.” And it’s not really possible to say who’s right. In both films, the whole thing is ridiculous but it’s played completely straight.
on Aug 06 2008 @ 1:55 pm 12. Alexander Coleman said …
Luke, I think you should check out Jacques Tourneur’s excellent 1957 noir, Nightfall. I truly believe the Coens utilized it as one of the chief templates for Fargo. (Though Tourneur’s underrated gem of a film is an almost entirely serious affair.)
on Aug 06 2008 @ 2:04 pm 13. Luke Harrington said …
Thanks for the tip, AC. I’ll check it out.
on Aug 06 2008 @ 4:10 pm 14. G said …
Rick, I’m with you: what terrible bad acting.
Luke: Frankenstein comes off as a bit of a comedy because Whale was a joker.
on Aug 06 2008 @ 5:41 pm 15. Luke Harrington said …
You make a good point. But then, I’ve always felt that any good horror flick has at least a little bit of comedy.
on Aug 06 2008 @ 7:58 pm 16. films noir said …
I have seen Detour only once, and I shared Luke’s initial reaction. The whole affair is hard to take seriously. The story of a guy so dumb he blames fate for the consequences of his own foolishness. Though fun to watch is Anne Savage, as the street-wise dame, who incredulously falls for the sap. A camp oddity, but hardly serious noir, that that other over-rated B, Decoy (1944).
on Aug 07 2008 @ 10:55 am 17. Sam Juliano said …
Films Noir, this film has built up a deserved reputation, NOT because the film can or can’t be taken seriously (after all that seems to be in large measure a typical film noir characteristic in many instances)but rather as always for its pacing, atmospherics and general overiding influence on the movement.
Film scholars and our finest film critics over decades are surely not all wrong.
on Aug 07 2008 @ 6:54 pm 18. films noir said …
Sam I accept what you say and respect all those contrary viewpoints. I saw the movie only last year and I was aware of all the hype, but my honest gut reaction was negative. Though I do concede that there are definitely noir elements, it just doesn’t stack-up as a film I admire.
on Aug 07 2008 @ 7:37 pm 19. Sam Juliano said …
Fair enough, films noir, I can respect that.
on Aug 09 2008 @ 1:12 am 20. The Film Talk » The Incredible Ann Savage said …
[...] the famous low-rent film-noir ‘Detour’ last night. Was astonished by the performance of ‘Ann Savage’ as the hitchhiker with [...]
on Aug 09 2008 @ 1:18 am 21. Jett Loe said …
Saw it last night for the first time – what a picture! Low-rent, seedy and all the better for it.
And will have to disagree with a commentor above – Ann Savage, (if that is her real name), is ASTONISHING! What a performance!
In a world where the latest ‘Mummy’ film cost 175 million dollars a pic like Detour reinvigorates my love of movies.
on Aug 09 2008 @ 7:41 am 22. Luke Harrington said …
I’m with you man. I’ll admit the whole thing is a little ham-fisted, but given that, the cast does an excellent job maintaining the tone. Savage owns the screen every time she appears.
on Aug 09 2008 @ 12:13 pm 23. Jett Loe said …
Hey, for something shot in 6 days it’s a real accomplishment
+ maybe points the way forward for ‘low-budget’ ‘youtubey’ productions of today as a counter-point to the overblown dinosaurs like the Mummy.
+ How cool is it that ‘Ann Savage’ is a star in the new Guy Madden film ‘My Winnipeg’!
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