Classic Film Review

Director Edgar G. Ulmer's "Detour" is Film Noir at it's best. This classic flick stars Tom Neal and Ann Savage.

Neal, a down on his luck piano player who has left California, is picked up on an Arizona highway while hitchhiking. His bad luck continues when the man who picked him up suddenly dies of a heart attack in his company. Afraid of being accused of murdering him, Neal gets rid of the body and takes the man's clothes, car and wallet.

While driving down the highway in the man's car, he sees blonde Ann Savage walking, looking exhausted and forlorn. Neal pulls over and offers her a ride which will soon throw him into a nightmare. She's crazy, mean and shrewish and the sound of her voice almost drove me up the wall while watching this film!

Throughout the film she has this awful sneer on her face and you can just feel her contempt for Neal as the movie progresses. You see, while in the car, she suddenly blurts out, "What did you do with the body?" It seems she had been picked up by the car's owner not too long ago and knows Neal isn't who he claims to be.

Under the threat of her telling the police, Neal turns into a simpering wimp and your sympathy for him quickly turns into disgust as he cowers under her continual verbal abuse.

I won't give the ending away but it's a true gem of Film Noir moviemaking.