Cinema
Detour
Edgar G. Ulmer · 1945
Synopsis
Al Roberts, a pianist in a New York nightclub, sees his fiancée Sue, a singer, leave for Hollywood, and hitchhikes after her. In Arizona, Charles Haskell picks him up in his convertible and lets him drive. During a storm, Al cannot wake him; when he opens the door, Haskell falls out and hits his head: he is dead. Convinced that he will be blamed, Al hides the body and takes the money, the papers, the clothes and the car. After a night at a motel, he picks up a passenger, Vera, who asks him what he has done with the body.
Context
The director said he had shot it in six days; the production documents record fourteen days of studio shooting, from 14 to 29 June 1945, and a final cost of about one hundred and seventeen thousand dollars, far from the twenty thousand of legend. Fog, shadows and close-ups against darkened backgrounds make up for rudimentary sets. The story rests on the voice of a narrator whose version several critics doubt. The rights not having been renewed, the film is in the public domain; the negative is lost, and a restoration was made in 2018.
Who it is for
A sixty-eight-minute film, in black and white, offered in the original version with subtitles in recent releases.
Prizes and reception
The first B movie entered in the National Film Registry, in 1992, and one of those that Roger Ebert included among his great films.
Sources for this page 10
The pages consulted to check this page.