In a relatively short time, YouTube has become the repository of the entire recorded history of the human race. Its sheer gargantuan size means that millions of videos lurk out there beyond the Trending lists, just waiting to be discovered by the discerning time-waster, if only they knew the right keywords to enter. Damn the luck! Fortunately, Popwell is here with a monthly tidbit that you can enjoy right this very minute, in the privacy of your own home, yard, vehicle and/or workspace.
Detour is a film that I can recommend without reservations. This low-budget noir classic from director Edgar G. Ulmer is one of my absolute favorites of the genre. Shot on a shoestring over the course of six days, it’s a gritty, down-and-dirty flick that insinuates itself into your brain and stays there. The flick has its share of technical gaffes and looks every bit the “poverty row” production that it is, but a couple of aspects raise it into the realm of noir greatness despite all that.
First, Tom Neal’s down-on-his-luck hitchhiker is one of the genre’s all-time great unreliable narrators. His voiceover relates the events of the film in typical hard-boiled noir style, but as you watch, it becomes clear that you’re getting his version of the story. And it’s by no means clear that he’s A) mentally stable or B) telling the truth about any of this. 
In Neal’s telling, his character is an amazingly unlucky piano player from back east who decided to hitch his way to California to reunite with his best gal, the former torch singer at his nightclub. He got picked up by a man who fell victim to the first of a series of unfortunate accidents that seem to follow Neal around. The man fell out of his car in the rain, hit his head on a rock and died. So of course, Neal hides the body and takes off with the car, which is just what anyone would do, right? Then he rather unluckily ended up picking up demonic femme fatale Vera, whose constant scheming and bitter nagging led him down the primrose path to a criminal downfall.
I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but once you watch the whole movie you realize there are a lot of holes in Neal’s story. Once you just “happen to be there” at more than one murder scene, it starts to get pretty suspicious. Frankly, I’m pretty sure that his “best gal” moved to California to get away from him, and that his whole hitchhiking adventure is based on his own delusional relationship with her. You can read between the lines to figure out what probably really happened, but Neal’s bitter narrator isn’t a lot of help. Plus, he spouts some of the darkest, most hopelessly noir-ish dialogue imaginable. Stuff like, “That’s life. Whichever way you turn, fate sticks out a foot to trip you up.” Or upon the reciept of a ten-dollar tip at the piano bar: “I couldn’t get very excited. What was it? I asked myself. A piece of paper, crawling with germs.” Real life of the party, as you can tell–and one of the great noir chumps of all time.
The second aspect that raises Detour into the realm of sheer genius is Ann Savage’s portrayal of Vera, the endlessly scheming and angry femme fatale of the piece. Savage’s half-crazed performance depicts Vera as a woman always right on the verge of completely losing it. In her first scene, she unleashes one of the most over-the-top, hysterical rants in film, and continues ratcheting up the crazy from there. She venomously spits out her dialogue as if in an evil, drunken rage and it’s absolutely impossible to take your eyes off her. Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity may be the gold standard for noir femmes fatale, but Ann Savage takes the cake in terms of sheer exuberant insanity. Plus, the film’s low-budget aesthetic helps make Savage’s wild fury all the more real and convincing. When she shows up hitching her way west, she looks like she’s actually been living on the road. The narrator cracks that she looks like she’d been “thrown off the crummiest freight train in the world,” and she really does. It’s safe to say you’ll never see another performance quite like Ann Savage as Vera.
Detour didn’t make a huge splash upon its release, but over the years it’s built a deserved reputation as a masterpiece of noir mood and character. Don’t take my word for it: the Library of Congress selected Detour to be preserved in the National Film Registry in 1992, vindicating the cult following it had built up among noir fans. The producers ended up letting the film fall into the public domain, which is why a really nice copy of it is sitting on YouTube right now, waiting for you to watch it. You should do so immediately.
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