Released: 1945

Dir. Edgar G. Ulmer

              Detour is film noir stripped of all the usual studio polish, leaving bare the rotting surface of a ladder leading to a nightmarish decent into hell. And what a decent it is.

              Made by poverty row studio PRC in 1945, Detour is a fine example of what a small studio could do with a meager budget and produce what is now considered essential film noir viewing. Poverty row Hollywood was hardly taken seriously, but to their credit PRC and director Edgar G. Ulmer took this film seriously, and we can’t help but take notice.

              The story focuses on Al Roberts(Tom Neal), a down and out piano player, eking out a living playing dives and living off tips offered by drunks. Al’s girlfriend, Sue(Claudia Drake), a singer at the night club, tired of working dives, wants to go to Hollywood and be a star. Leaving Al pounding the ivories in obscurity.

              Al, a cynical optimist, finally decides to join Sue in California. So, with zero dollars, and no cents(or is that sense?), Al sets out, hitchhiking his way to California. This is the first of many bad decisions made by Al. He slowly makes his way to the Arizona desert, where he is picked up by Charles Haskell(Edmund MacDonald), who’s on his way to Los Angeles to place a bet on a horse. Haskell shares a cautionary tale with Al about a ‘the most dangerous animal in the world- a woman’, whom he had picked up earlier on his journey. Fresh scratches on his right hand are evidence of the encounter. But that’s all behind him, as he and Al motor their way west.

              Al takes over the driving duties, and it begins to rain. Al pulls over to put the top up and discovers that Haskell has dropped dead. To make matters worse, Al opens Haskell’s door and Haskell falls out, his head landing square on a rock. Now Haskell has a post-mortem headwound. The cops will never believe Al’s story, or at least that’s what Al tells himself. In a panic Al decides the only logical thing to do is assume Haskell’s identity, continue to California, ditch the car, blend in with the population, and go back to being Al Roberts. No, Al doesn’t relish the thought of a lethal dose of sleeping gas courtesy of the State of Arizona.

              Desperately in need of sleep, Al stops at a motel. While there he learns as much as he can about Haskell from his wallet and luggage, just in case. Fortunately, Haskell had over $700 on him, a whole lotta lettuce in 1945, and clothing that fits Al quite nicely. Adequately rested and settling into his new identity, Al sets out to complete his journey.

              Stopping to top up his radiator with water, Al spots a hitchhiker at the side of the road. A woman looking as pathetic as he did after days on the road. Al waves her over offering her a ride. She gets in the car and Al’s fate is as good as sealed.

              Vera(Ann Savage), is about as evil as a femme fatale can get, and is right up there with Phyllis Dietrichson(Double Indemnity) and Annie Laurie Starr(Gun Crazy). Only there’s no glamour about Vera, she’s covered in the filth of the road she just came from. Filth that seeps deep inside her, into the cavity where her heart should be. Vera is that ‘most dangerous of animal’ Haskell had spoken of earlier.

              Al, who is narrating his own story, speaks of fate sticking ‘out a foot to trip you.’ But when Al meets Vera fate punches him in the face, the gut, an upper cut to the chin, a right cross, followed by a body slam, and they haven’t even reached LA yet. There is no escape for Al, he’s handcuffed to Vera, and they are the cuffs of blackmail. It is a nightmare, a trip to hell, played out in the familiar trappings of an automobile, desert roads, drunken nights in a sleazy LA apartment, culminating in murder in the second degree.

              Al Roberts is just an average joe, who wants to make a decent living and have a normal life with the woman he loves. He is hardened by the cruelty of the big city, but he still has a heart, and bares no ill will towards anyone. You can’t help but root for Al, his only vice seems to be making bad decisions, that ultimately lead him to a fateful night in Los Angeles.

              You could be glib and say Detour is about the hazards of hitch-hiking, but if you allow yourself to look deeper this is an odyssey into the darkest reaches of the human psyche, that perhaps a larger Hollywood studio couldn’t get away with at the time. Although Double Indemnity is very close. This film is planted in a cinematic gutter and manages to flourish, never sheading it’s battered, dog-eared, pulp novel roots.

Detour is available on the Criterion Channel