Tonight's Movie: Detour (1945) at the Noir City Film Festival

It's been a busy few weeks for me, attending numerous events and screenings in Los Angeles, and this year's TCM Classic Film Festival is right around the corner. I should have my schedule picks for TCMFF posted in the next few days!

First, though, I want to take a look back at the Noir City Hollywood Festival. I'll be reviewing the two new-to-me films I saw there, DETOUR (1945) and MY TRUE STORY (1951), and when time permits I'll also be sharing an overview of the festival with photographs.

Somehow I'd never caught up with DETOUR, which I've tended to confuse with DECOY (1946) due to the similarity of names and mid '40s release years. When I finally saw DECOY at the 2023 Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival I loved it, and I was anticipating feeling similarly about DETOUR.

Alas, although I expected and wanted to love it, DETOUR really didn't work for me. It started well and there were elements I enjoyed, with perfectly "noir" settings such as a diner and the "Break O' Dawn" nightclub, but overall I found its 66 minutes surprisingly dull.

Tom Neal plays Al Roberts, a New York musician hitch-hiking to California, where he hopes to marry his girlfriend Sue (Claudia Drake), a singer.

Al catches a ride with a bookie named Haskell (Edmund McDonald), who unfortunately dies while Al takes a shift driving. Al opens the car door when trying to rouse Haskell, who falls out of the car and hits his head.

Al is convinced the police will believe he's a murderer if he reports the death, so he instead hides the body and takes off in Haskell's car. He also helps himself to Haskell's cash and ID. Is he a man who's panic-stricken...or maybe just not a very good guy?

Al picks up a hitch-hiker named Vera (Savage), who in short order reveals she knows Al isn't Haskell, as Al initially claims. And her blackmail of Al begins...

This is a dark story which had potential, but while I love some of director Edgar G. Ulmer's other films -- HER SISTER'S SECRET (1946) is a favorite -- Savage's performance brings down the entire movie. Whereas I found Jean Gillie in the very wild DECOY fascinating, Savage seemed to play the vicious Vera using a single note. Although she's often praised for her performance, which some find bravely audacious, I frankly found her shrill and monotonous.

Neal was a little more interesting as the hapless Al, though it was never clear to me from Martin Goldsmith's screenplay why Al was so convinced he'd be in dire trouble if he promptly reported Haskell's death. It almost seems to imply that perhaps Al has other things in his past which caused him to feel such guilt. Whatever the reasons, his bad choices quickly throw Al's life into a dark, noirish spiral from which he may never recover.

I love noir, which of course is often bleak, but this story simply wasn't interesting to me. I'm open to going back to it one day and seeing if it hits differently -- after all, it's only a little over an hour long -- but this is the rare noir I didn't love.

I recognize this is a minority opinion and am happy to consider defenses of the film in the comments if anyone is so inclined. I've read a couple since seeing the movie, including a review by Glenn Erickson, trying to understand what other people appreciate about it. I loved that Glenn called it "loser noir" and think I enjoyed his enthusiastic descriptions and quotes more than the movie.

DETOUR was filmed in black and white by Benjamin H. Kline. It was released by the low-budget PRC (Producers Releasing Corporation). The supporting cast includes Tim Ryan and Esther Howard.

A restored copy of DETOUR is available from the Criterion Collection on Blu-ray or DVD.

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