Detour

1945's DETOUR feels like a long lost Super 8 reel that might've been discovered in your drunken uncle's attic.  A no frills film noir that appears to have been made by amateurs, a real home movie, yet plays so smoothly and ultimately with grim satisfaction.   A certain morality is at work here, right 'til the closing seconds.  You know crime doesn't pay, even if you never meant to do it.  Perhaps you fell into it.  Maybe you're just another victim of fate.  A guy like Al Roberts knows it all too well.  His sad words narrate this scrappy little picture directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and released by the Producers Releasing Corporation, one of the B-movie studios known as "Poverty Row".

Roberts (Tom Neal), a pianist in a low rent NYC nightclub, loves Sue (Claudia Drake), who yearns to  make it big in Hollywood.  She follows her dream, leaving Roberts in a funk.  One day he decides to make his way West by the only method available to him - hitchhiking.  Rides are infrequent and short.  Drivers are too chatty or dangerous.  But luck seems to turn when Charles Haskell Jr. (Edmund MacDonald) pulls up in the Arizona dust.  He's a pleasant enough guy, and headed to L.A.  But Al learns the guy is a bookie, and swallows lots of pills.  Luck turns again - after pulling over, Al finds the guy isn't sleeping anymore.  He's dead.

What to do? Al's no killer.  But what will the police think? Roberts decides to leave the body and take Haskell's belongings, including a sizable wad of cash.  Will he assume his identity too?

Then luck turns in an even worse direction.  He picks up the fast talking Vera (Ann Savage) at a gas station in California.  Seems she once thumbed a ride with Haskell, too.  She sees several opportunities now.   Al becomes trapped by her schemes.  To get rich, of course.   Will he ever get back to Sue?

What eventually happens is pure noir, but maybe not in the traditional fashion.  I really admired Martin Goldsmith's lean screenplay.   His characters are nicely fleshed out and often unpredictable.  Almost realistic, never movie star-ish.   His dialogue is entertainingly salty.   The exchanges between Al and Vera are golden most of the time; the actors do fine work.  What happens between them isn't necessarily what you would expect.   Savage's chain smoking and leg crossing femme fatale is predictably calculating and fierce but also surprisingly vulnerable.  Credit must also go to Ulmer, who despite an an implementation of what often appears to be a crude, unlearned style nonetheless does some solid work.  DETOUR is an hour and seven minutes worthy of your precious time.