Detour (1945)

Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. Starring Tom Neal, Ann Savage, Edmund MacDonald, Claudia Drake, Don Brodie, Pat Gleason.

Low-budget B-movie film noir about a self-pitying sadsack (Neal) getting caught up in a whirlwind of theft, false identity schemes, and murder with a tart-tongued hellion (Savage). Fairly unremarkable from an arms-length perspective, with cost-cutting tricks and editing/directorial blemishes that would sink most productions, but the film has developed a strangely emphatic following over the years. Bleak and paranoid, even by genre standards, with a shortage of narrative twists (though one method of murder is a ghoulish treat). Neal’s miserable, whining narration gets old after a while, but it does provide the intriguing possibility of the unreliable storyteller—every “accidental” death could easily be a lie since the killer is telling the story. Savage’s wild, acidic performance is like a feral animal attempting politesse (and often failing); it doesn’t matter if it’s bad or good—and it’s certainly not the latter—because at least it’s never boring.

61/100