detour [1945]

 

now this is a film!  i've read about this flick for a while now.  i've been watching older movies & really getting into film noir.  i dig crime stories that feature very flawed characters.  i like my detectives & p.i.'s broken, obsessed, brilliant, kinda shady, & if they lean towards alcoholic all the better!  perhaps i like crime fiction because i am getting older.  detective fiction, i.e. hard-boiled & film noir, is a caustic investigation of our chaotic world.  the detective is like the poet.  both live in the margins of society as we both investigate & find beauty in the ugly.  i noticed too many older poets i've known became crime fiction aficionados.  you can count me in that club too.  

at any rate, this flick is one of the best american film noirs that i have seen recently.  directed by edgar g. ulmer on a meager budget it is said that this movie was shot in about six days.  if so, wow!  because ulmer doesn't waste a frame of film.  this is a lean pic of paranoia, fear, manipulation, & greed.  oh throw in a little love too.  why not.  the run time is taut at 68 minutes.  the play of light & shadows is masterful.  you can craft your phd dissertation on the strength of this movie.

the gist goes like this.  our antihero al, played by tom neal, is a pianist in a NYC nightclub.  his girlfriend, sue, played by claudia drake, is the singer.  sue goes west to find her fame & fortune in hollywood leaving poor ol' al, who wanted to marry sue, alone.  al still wants to marry sue.  so one night after his gig at the nightclub he calls sue & tells her he's on his way to her in california.  now, i don't know the renumeration of musicians in NYC nightclubs was in 1945 but poor ol' al is broke.  he's gotta hitch his way out west.  & he does.  gets as far as reno.

you see he's picked up by a bookie by the name of charles haskell, jr., played by edmund macdonald.  haskell has a wad of cash, some deep scratches on his hand & arm, & a terrible physical state that demands he take a great many pills.  but haskell is a friendly voluble dude who takes a liking to al.  even treats al to dinner at a diner when poor ol' al told haskell he'd wait outside when haskell wanted to get something to eat.  who is haskell, why does he have those scratches, & what sort of condition is his condition?  ulmer, & screenwriter martin goldsmith, author of the source novel, never lets us know.  but we do know, because we are watching a noir flick, it ain't too good.

what happens next is a sequence of very bad luck for al.  i don't want to give too much away but let me say that when he picks up vera, played meanly, icily & downright scarily by ann savage, al is in deep deep shit  vera might be the most cold, brutal, & calculating woman ever put on american celluloid.  man, she is a force of nature.  you hate her.  you admire her.  you can't believe your eyes & ears as she takes al on that very very dark detour.  & al is forever altered by it.  

this movie is in the public domain so it is easy to find & watch.  i believe there are several channels on youtube hosting this flick.  the print i watched last night was grainy, flickery & scratchy.  my favorite kind of print!  kinda reminded me of seeing this movie at the drive-in or on late-night TV.  now, as i said a little earlier, i am just beginning to explore film noir.  but this is one helluva introduction to the genre.  i can't recommend this movie enough.