Review of Detour (1992) by Steve J — 11 Aug 2014

This may be the ultimate American film. It's certainly the ultimate film noir. The plot (charitably described as unlikely), the acting (distinct but not particularly distinguished), and the general style of the production (cheap) are all utilized in service of one of the finest exercises in cinematic atmosphere ever captured on film.

In a story told largely through narration supplied by Al Roberts (Tom Neal), a young pianist and weak-kneed crybaby who tells how he set out to hitchhike from New York to Los Angeles to be with his girlfriend, a talented but unsuccessful singer.

Along the way he gets caught up in a web of slowly mounting horror as a series of bizarre events leads him inexorably to a doomed fate in classic noir tradition. The face of his doom is fellow hitchhiker Vera (Ann Savage, memorable in her justly best-known role), a vicious, conniving little harpy who blackmails Al when she discovers that he accidentally caused the death of a motorist somewhere on the backroads of Arizona.

She schemes to manipulate the situation to make a lot of money for both herself and her new friend via a preposterous scheme whose mechanics I will not reveal here. We can see right away that this will end badly for everyone involved.

As I said, the story is pish-posh (and anyway, it's probable that Al is lying to us to cover his own ass), and the acting is definitely par for the course for a Poverty Row potboiler, but director Edgar G Ulmer, a German émigré who started in the Expressionist school and became a highly prolific director both in and out of the studio system in Hollywood, turns these liabilities to assets, transforming a tawdry misadventure into a genuinely frightening (and surprisingly kinky) descent into the pitch-black heart of the American dream.

Ulmer was bold to release this study in masochism, paranoia, and misogyny in the middle of World War II, a time when most American films were engineered to be upbeat and patriotic. The low-grade acting and cheesy sets enhance the sordid atmosphere, and the bizarre, implausible storyline has all the suffocating illogic of a nightmare.

Shot almost entirely on studio sets in a matter of only 6 days, Detour is a perfect cinematic example of creativity and ingenuity winning out over practical limitations. In a fascinating career containing films both sublime and execrable, this may well have been Ulmer's finest hour.

If you like film noir, this is without a doubt the purest example of the genre.