DETOUR puts the noir in film noir. Utilizing "night-for-night" cinematography, this amazingly dark genre landmark unfolds with the logic of a nightmare as Al Roberts (Tom Neal) recounts in voice-over the unlikely chain of events that landed him in a purgatorial diner in the middle of
nowhere. A triumph of talent and inspiration over budget, it was made on the cheap by a Poverty Row studio in just six days. This road picture was filmed almost entirely in the studio, but director Edgar Ulmer transforms limitations into virtues. The sleazy look somehow feels right for DETOUR's
self-consciously Freudian allegory of Oedipal rage and misogyny.
Roberts is a piano play...
Released:
1945
Rated:
NR
Length:
67 mins