Detour (1945)
Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer

Film Review

'That's life', laments Al Roberts, the doomy protagonist of Edgar G. Ulmer's bleakly fatalistic noir masterpiece Detour. 'Whichever way you turn, Fate sticks out a foot to trip you up.'  Unfortunately for poor Al, Fate turns out to be a psychopathic millipede with a decidedly sick sense of humour.  Film noir has a reputation for looking on the dark side of life, but Detour takes things to an extreme that borders on morbid absurdity, helped along by a plot that is so grim and contrived that it makes classical Greek tragedy look like a low-key drawing room comedy.  For Ulmer, a stylistic genius spurned by Hollywood's more respectable studios and forced to eke out a thrifty existence in Poverty Row, the film represents a high watermark, a B-movie that is now so well-regarded that it rates as one of the greatest of all films noirs. It is tragic that the director who crafted such stylish films as this and the equally impressive Bluebeard (1944) should end up having to make films like Beyond the Time Barrier (1960) and The Amazing Transparent Man (1960) on a virtually non-existent budget.

Detour is the best of five films which paired Tom Neal, an amateur boxer-turned actor, with B-movie diva Ann Savage.  Whilst far from being bereft of talent, neither actor had what it took to become a major Hollywood star and most of their films deserve the obscurity that time, that great arbiter of good taste, has seen fit to confer upon them.  However, in Detour, their casting is impeccable, their roles perfectly aligned with their acting styles and contrasting personas.  Edgar Ulmer's penchant for delivering moody atmospherics on a virtually non-existent budget is often cited as the reason why the film holds up so well, in spite of its many obvious technical imperfections, but just as important is the casting in the lead roles of two actors who were born to play the parts of Al and Vera, two halves of cinema's bloodiest sadomasochistic double act.

It hardly comes as a surprise to discover that Tom Neal's own personal life was so closely reflected in the experiences of his character in Detour.  Al Roberts is one of life's born losers, a man who passively accepts the disasters that life throws at him and likes nothing better than to wallow in self-pity, blaming Fate for being a mean old bastard instead of taking control of his life.  Neal may not have been quite so pathetic and submissive as his screen alter ego but he was still a loser, owing mainly to his susceptibility to sexual jealousy.  Following a mostly lacklustre career in Hollywood, Neal ended up being blacklisted when he beat up another actor, Franchot Tone, after his on-and-off lover Barbara Payton ditched him forTone.  Necessity drove him to earn his crust as a gardener, but then he ended up being arrested for the murder of his third wife Gale Bennett in 1965, who died in circumstances not too dissimilar to those depicted at the end of Detour.  After serving six years for manslaughter, Neal died within a year of his release from prison, aged 58.  The sardonic line about Fate sticking out a foot must have reverberated in Neal's head for many years after he delivered it in Ulmer's film.

Judging by how easily the personality of Al Roberts sits on Tom Neal you might expect the actor to see a lot of himself in the character, the most solid and believable that Neal brought to the screen.  At no point do we feel any sympathy for him, however.  Rather, we take great pleasure from his slow descent into Hell, especially when the most deliciously vile of all femmes fatales enters his life and makes mincemeat of the spineless lump of beefsteak that is so keen to land itself on the butcher's chopping board.   It's the kind of amusement we derive from watching a spider cocoon and then devour an innocent little fly caught in her web.  Al is dead long before he meets Vera, and watching his torment in the hands of a vicious sadist is something that can hardly fail to gratify our baser instincts.  Everything about the film compels us to revel in Al's distress as he sinks deeper and deeper into the mire.

In what would become the defining role of her career, Ann Savage lives up to her name with a vengeance, relishing the choice role of a predatory dominatrix who, having found an easy victim, just doesn't know when to stop when the instinct to torture and humilate asserts itself.  Vera gets almost as much enjoyment out of ripping Al to shreds as Al seems to get from playing the mauled sheep, and it's hard not to notice the sizzling sexual tension between the characters as they lay into each other, Al lashing out vainly with weary sarcasm as Vera spits mouthfuls of acid into his face as she crushes the living manhood out of him.  It's a marriage made in Hell, and boy do they seem to be having a good time.  When Fate sticks out that foot of hers, she certainly knows what she's doing.

Film Synopsis

Al Roberts works as a piano player in a two-bit New York nightclub with his girlfriend Sue, an aspiring singer.  The two plan to marry but Sue, confident she is star material, leaves Al to try to make a name for herself in Hollywood.  Several solitary nights later, Al decides to join his sweetheart in California, hitchhiking his way across country with the little money he has in his possession.  Charles Haskell Jr offers Al a lift to Los Angeles in his swanky convertible but before they reach their destination Haskell dies suddenly from his heart condition.  Fearing that he may be blamed for the man's death, Al hides his body, takes his clothes and identification papers, and then resumes his journey in Haskell's car.  He then picks up another hitchhiker, Vera, who happens to be the very woman that Haskell broke up with before meeting Al.  Threatening to betray Al to the police, Vera coerces him into selling the convertible and giving him the proceeds from the sale.  Before they carry out this plan, Vera has an even better idea.  She has just seen a newspaper report that Haskell's wealthy father is critically ill and may die at any moment.  If Al can pass himself off as Haskell's son he stands to inherit a fortune.  Reluctantly, Al agrees to go along with the scheme, but Fate has one more surprise in store for him...