View movie

View thumbnails
Run time: 67 min

Play / Download (help)

(274 MB)Ogg Video
(281 MB)512Kb MPEG4
(1.7 GB)MPEG2

Resources

Edgar G. UlmerDetour (1945)

"Man is involved in two freakish accidents that make him look like a murderer. Poverty row masterwork that is the most precise elucidation of the noir theme of explicit fatalism." - noir expert Spencer Selby |

Cast: Tom Neal, Ann Savage, Claudia Drake, Edmund MacDonald. |
A B-movie, it was shot in six days. The film, budgeted for $89,000 and ended up costing $117,000 to make.


This movie is part of the collection: Film Noir

Director: Edgar G. Ulmer
Production Company: PRC Pictures Inc.
Sponsor: k-otic.com
Audio/Visual: sound, black & white
Keywords: Crime; Drama; Film-Noir; Mystery; Thriller
Contact Information: www.k-otic.com

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

Individual Files

Write a review
Downloaded 29,813 timesReviews
Average Rating:

Reviewer: inselpeter - - July 3, 2009
Subject: Good Flick (note: spoiler alert)
My vote is with Freddie Jaye as well. It answers all the many otherwise open questions. Among those not yet mentioned: the Rosemary Woods routine Vera uses to get the chord slipped round her neck; the direction of Roberts pull when trying to disconnect the line (a period tough-guy or anti-hero would typically pull the line free from the wall); and the failure of the used car man to alert the police.

More to the point, though, the setup is a narrator speaking in the second person and asking us to believe his yarn. We transcend the members of the jury to whom he likens us by an assumption of narrative films: we 'witness' the events. Flattering the intelligence and insight of his listeners is con man genetics. In this case, however, the seduction is intrinsically filmic; the con man relies on our suspension of disbelief *within* suspension of disbelief as we 'witness' the events of his narrative unfold.

More accurately, the seduction is a device of the writer who makes good use of a cinematic cliche - by which I mean not the lyric voice, per se, but conditioned response of the audience on exposure to it.

There is some exquisite camera work. Most notable is the long dolly shot at the gas station when Vera approaches the car for the first time, and the sequence of shots of leading to her turning toward Roberts for the first time.

Take it as given that the story is a bill of goods and Vera is perfect, not over the top. Her name, incidentally, means 'truth', Anna's, 'faith' or 'grace'.

The score is Chopin, Schubert ... and a composer I couldn't identify.

The only real problem with this film is that it doesn't quite pull off its elegant and subtle project. I give it five stars instead of four to give its ratings a bump.

Reviewer: Moongleam - - April 11, 2009
Subject: A better copy
This copy is sharper:
http://www.archive.org/details/Detour_movie

Reviewer: slugs and urchins - - April 10, 2009
Subject: ambiguous on purpose
There are some clues as to the cause of the "possible" natural death of the guy who picks up the hiker; he's taking pep-pills to stay awake while driving across country and has a heart-attack or a brain aneurism before hitting his head on the pavement when the door opens. Certainly the fall didn't kill him. He was dead before he hit the ground.

Vera doesn't just act evil in the film she's the opposite to the grifter and she takes her pound of flesh from him as well. She's evil alright. So was the driver.

The police would certainly not believe his story but they're paid not to so it's no wonder that we still have so many innocent and poor wrongly convicted in this country. I'm sure it was worse in the '30s & '40s.

Instead of looking up his girl he goes on the run which is something a real crook would not do. he would look to establish and alibi through a known party. Unless he's killed her as well...

But the ending is ambiguous on purpose so either explanation is equally plausible. Neal is going to be fried in any case. I just wish he would wipe that "pity-poor-me" look off his face since it makes you want to pull the lever yourself!

Reviewer: Ella_Greggs - - April 9, 2009
Subject: View it with a Jaundiced Eye
I think the only way one can watch this movie is with the mindset suggested below by Freddie Jaye: view the movie as the story Al Roberts tells the police to cover up his crimes. It's the only way to account for what is otherwise the film's biggest flaw (the "explicit fatalism" Selby refers to) -- the preposterous premise that our anti-hero, on the run from the law, under an assumed identity and desperate to get to LA as soon as possible, would stop to pick up a hitchhiker. It also explains evil, evil, evil Vera - we're not seeing a real character, but rather Roberts' self-serving portrayal of her. Various other things to nit-pick: Somehow I suspect the lead role was written with John Garfield in mind. Or maybe it's just Tom Neal doing his best Garfield imitation. Certainly, the ending harkens back to "Postman Always Rings Twice." Ann Savage overacts "Vera" outrageously, as if she were doing grand guignol instead of film noir. But, when viewed with the requisite jaundiced eye, the film is reasonably entertaining.

Reviewer: Freddie Jaye - - February 2, 2009
Subject: Truth or fiction?
A tight little flick, filed with many unlikely coincidences.

I plucked this idea from an IMDB message board: is "Al Roberts" truly innocent, and the victim of a run of incredibly bad luck?

Or is he truly a cold-blooded killer, with the story we see being nothing more than his mental rehearsal of an (implausible) explanation for two murders?

Watch for little clues -- a pianist of his incredible skill playing in a dive; the one-sided phone conversation; the driver who dies in the car AND clonks his head on a rock shortly thereafter, etc. -- and the second possibility becomes quite believable. Especially so given the ending.

I don't expect much subtlety from cheap little B-movies (although I love them madly), but this one certainly has it...if you look at it the right way.

Reviewer: jimelena - - June 6, 2007
Subject: Good flick
Pretty entertaining after you get by the first 15 minutes of back story.

Reviewer: robcat2075 - - February 12, 2007
Subject: not a B, a B+
Of all the opportune coincidences in this movie, the saxophone player in the next room is the best.

A first class B movie, and really, a $100,000 budget was pretty solid back then.

Reviewer: fubunics - - February 9, 2007
Subject: Don't waste your time and ours if you're going to encode at 640x480
The MPEG2 file is encoded at 640x480, in other words whoever encoded it is defeating the purpose of even encoding it at MPEG2 and it has to be re-encoded to be DVD-compliant. Really a waste of time to even encode at MPEG2 if you're not going to use a standard resolution, and a waste of time for the downloaders as well. Picture looks decent otherwise. Sorry to be so harsh, but some common sense needs to be used if this much effort is going to be put into encoding and uploading these films.

Reviewer: LordOfTheExacto - - January 26, 2007
Subject: Stark and scary
This noir is more frightening than gritty in its domino-like series of events. The protagonist Al, played by Tom Neal, starts out as kind of a hard-bitten wannabe - he'd like to think he's tough and callous, but he still has a soft spot for his singer/lover Sue (Claudia Drake). When a grifter who picked him up hitchhiking dies unexpectedly, Al's only-partly-affected cynicism convinces him that he would be presumed guilty of the man's murder. From there, it's a slow descent into fear, blackmail and coercion, prodded along by Ann Savage's slightly over-hardened femme fatale. By the time the end arrives, it's hard to see how things could have unfolded any differently.

This is the sort of movie best watched alone, at three in the morning, with a dark house and a full bottle of vodka. And all the sharp objects safely locked away.