Detour

1945

Detour

Critics Consensus

No consensus yet.

78%

Audience Score

User Ratings: 5,357

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Detour Photos

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Movie Info

Detour, called by many the ultimate "film noir," made on a shoe-string budget, and utilizing "night-for-night cinematography, creates a bleak, uncompromising, pessimistic nightmare world where its inhabitants can expect neither mercy, sympathy or justice. Al Roberts (Tom Neal) is the piano player in a sleazy New York nightclub. Sue (Claudia Drake) his girlfriend seeking stardom, leaves for Hollywood. Al follows, hitching a ride with a talkative, drug-addicted businessman who mysteriously dies during the trip. Al, frightened that he will be blamed for the death, hides the body in a ditch and assumes the businessman's identity. Needing company, Al picks up Vera (Ann Savage), a fellow hitchhiker who knows of Al's deception. Vera, hostile, agressive and with an annoying, nagging voice might be one of the most unbearably unpleasant female characters in a genre which celebrates wicked women. She blackmails Al, leading to one of the most memorable death scenes in film history. Directer Edgar G. Ulmer, limited to a six day shooting schedule, while crude and lacking in finesse, succeeds in creating a memorable, dark, nightmare world, uncaring, cynical and brutal. Detour is a bleak gem which has gained well-deserved cult status.

Rating:

NR
Genre:

Classics, Cult Movies, Drama, Mystery & Suspense
Directed By:

Edgar G. Ulmer
Written By:

Christopher Smith, Martin Goldsmith
In Theaters:

Nov 30, 1945 wide
On Disc/Streaming:

Sep 26, 2000
Runtime:

67 minutes
Studio:

Film Chest

Cast

Tom Neal
as Al Roberts

Ann Savage
as Vera

Claudia Drake
as Sue Harvey

Edmund MacDonald
as Charles Haskell Jr

Tim Ryan
as Diner Proprietor

Esther Howard
as Hedy

Roger Clark
as Dillon

Pat Gleason
as Man

Don Brodie
as Used car salesman

View All

Critic Reviews for Detour

All Critics (26) | Top Critics (5) | Fresh (26)

The film, told in flashbacks, is held together by a poetically lurid interior monologue and directed, by Edgar G. Ulmer, with harrowingly expressive effects of light and shadow.

Nov 26, 2018 | Full Review…

Richard Brody
New Yorker
Top Critic
Uniformly good performances and some equally good direction and dialog keep the meller moving.

Oct 16, 2007 | Full Review…

Variety Staff
Variety
Top Critic
One of the most daring and thoroughly perverse works of art ever to come out of Hollywood.

Oct 16, 2007 | Full Review…

Dave Kehr
Chicago Reader
Top Critic
Passion joins with folly to produce termite art par excellence.

Jan 26, 2006 | Full Review…

Time Out
Top Critic
It lives on, haunting and creepy, an embodiment of the guilty soul of film noir. No one who has seen it has easily forgotten it.

Jan 1, 2000 | Rating: 4/4 | Full Review…

Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
Top Critic
Detour is about as threadbare as they come: a small film, shot on a shoestring over a handful of days at a Poverty Row film studio. And yet, the finished product is uniquely compelling.

Jun 25, 2019 | Full Review…

Bryant Frazer
Film Freak Central
one of the darkest and most fatalistic of the postwar film noir-to the point that, if it didn't work so well, it could be mistaken for a postmodern parody of the genre

Apr 8, 2019 | Rating: 3.5/4 | Full Review…

James Kendrick
Q Network Film Desk
Ulmer brings an enormous amount of impressionistic creativity and (what are now considered) infamous noir tropes into the project without spending more money.

Apr 4, 2019 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Eric Melin
Scene-Stealers.com
One of the most dour, dank and despairing of all film noir offerings.

Mar 23, 2019 | Rating: 3.5/4 | Full Review…

Matt Brunson
Film Frenzy
One of the greatest noirs of all time, shot on an almost non-existent budget, lives again.

Dec 13, 2018 | Rating: 9/10 | Full Review…

Ron Wilkinson
It's Just Movies
A one-of-a-kind masterpiece that is as bleak and bitter to behold as ever.

Dec 6, 2018 | Rating: 5/5 | Full Review…

Peter Sobczynski
eFilmCritic.com
The world of Detour provides a sharp contrast with the cheerful domesticity and rah-rah jingoism of many Hollywood films of the period ...

Jul 23, 2014 | Rating: 7/10 | Full Review…

Sarah Boslaugh
Playback:stl

View All Critic Reviews (26)

Audience Reviews for Detour

Jul 13, 2014

Pleasantly short and well-constructed, Detour may not be the most memorable work of film noir, however it is well-acted and features an intriguing plot. It's fun to watch and follow, especially due to Savage's great performance.

Matthew Samuel M Super Reviewer
Jan 28, 2014

In one strange sequence a piano player, our downtrodden hero, lays down classical chops only the long hairs at Carnegie Hall could appreciate in front of a dive nightclub crowd that's barely awake. Even our hero seems not to care, and there's the charm of this nightmare: when he says or thinks "nobody cares" he's right, like a slow walk to the bathroom to slit your wrists. The dialogue is beautiful, the ending too quick, too pat, but the whole is like a two-year-old's pout dramatised. Visceral stuff.

Kevin M. W Super Reviewer
Jun 12, 2013

Thanks to Edgar G. Ulmer for causing in us suspension of disbelief: unbelievably bad luck had never been so entertaining. Respects go to Ann Savage for being a total menace, like if it was in her nature! 97/100

Edgar C Super Reviewer
Jul 25, 2012

This is such a shame. What makes "Detour" ultimately unimpressive is its second half, which falls apart with the arrival of Ann Savage's character. This is honestly one of the most unlikable performances I think I've ever seen. To be so unnecessarily over the top is just uncalled for. Tom Neal does an excellent job at creating a character that we can sympathize with, but there are times where Savage is so bad that she threatens to lessen the impact of his performance. And it's just a real shame. "Detour" has such a great opening half hour that it seems destined for greatness, but sadly, it just can't keep the momentum going.

Stephen E Super Reviewer