Detour

Long considered an unsung gem of filmnoir, the private treasure of film buffs, cinephiles and critics, Edgar G. Ulmer'sDetour(1945) has recently earned a new wave of recognition, judged "beyond remarkable" by the film critic David Thomson. The only B-picture to make it into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress,Detourhas escaped its fate as the bastard child of one of Hollywood's lowliest studios. Ulmer's film follows, in flashback, the journey of Al Roberts (Tom Neal), a pianist hitching from New York to California to join his girlfriend Sue (Claudia Drake), a singer gone to seek her fortune in Hollywood. In classicnoirstyle,Detour features mysterious deaths, changes of identity, an unforgettablefemme fatale(Vera, played by Ann Savage), and, in Neal, a wretched, masochistic antihero. Noah Isenberg's study ofDetourdraws on a vast array of archival sources, unpublished letters and interviews, to provide an animated and thorough account of the film's production history, its critical reception, its afterlife (including various remakes) and the different ways in which the film has been understood since its release. He devotes significant attention to each of the key players in the film the crew as well as the principal actors while charting the uneasy transformation of Martin Goldsmith's pulp novel into Ulmer's signature film, the disagreements between the director and writer, and the severe financial and formal limitations with which Ulmer grappled. The story that Isenberg tells, rich in historical and critical insight, replicates the briskness of the B-movie form.

Noah Isenberg is Associate Professor of University Humanities at the New School in New York City.