Detour (1945)

I remember the first time that I saw Detour because I couldn’t see it all the way through! The character of Vera is so shrill, so unpleasant, that I had to take a break and start over. But since then, I have come to appreciate Ann Savage’s performance as Vera. Her performance inspired a mix of horror and fascination, which is one of the details that makes Detour so noir.

The film starts with a man, Al Roberts, stopped at night in the Nevada Diner in the middle of the desert. He is returning east and is plagued by memories of a song (a truck driver plays it on the diner’s jukebox) and a woman he loves but now feels he must forget. His memory of the events leading up to his stop in the diner are told in flashbacks. Most of the film is told by Al Roberts in flashback as he sits on a stool at the counter of the Nevada Diner. Before he starts his story, he addresses imaginary people who he doesn’t think will believe the story that he is about to tell. He uses the second-person plural: “I know what you’re gonna hand me even before you open your mouths.” “Your smug faces.” He could he be preparing himself for the day that he has to defend his actions to others, maybe even a judge and jury.

Detour is in the public domain. It’s available on DVD from The Criterion Collection, but you can also see it online. Click here to watch it for free at the Internet Archive.

When Al starts his story, the audience learns that he was, probably still is, in love with Sue Harvey. They had a nightclub act in New York City; she sang and he played piano. He wants to marry her, but she wants to try her luck in California. Al is despondent after she leaves, so he decides to go to California, too. In an effort to save money, he starts to hitchhike across the country. He poses a question, again seeming to address the audience directly: “Ever done any hitchhiking? It’s not much fun, believe me . . . Thumbing rides may save you bus fare, but it’s dangerous. You never know what’s in store for you when you hear the squeal of brakes. If only I had known what I was getting into that day in Arizona.”

Fate, one of the hallmarks of noir, is about to step in and alter Al’s plans. The way that he tells his story (and because this is noir), I was pretty sure that it wouldn’t have mattered whether Al hitchhiked or rode the bus; somehow fate would have found a way to intervene. Fate and Vera, the female hitchhiker that he picks up in Arizona, seem to wrest all control from Al. He makes some bad decisions, but he doesn’t take any responsibility for them.

(This article about Detour contains spoilers.)

Al’s troubles start in Arizona, when he is hitchhiking west to California and he is picked up by a man named Charles Haskell, Jr. Haskell makes Al a bit uncomfortable when he asks him to find his pills in the glove compartment. He makes Al even more uncomfortable when he talks about the ugly scratches on his right hand from a female hitchhiker and then about a scar that he got in a duel when he was a teenager. But he stays with Haskell because he offers to pay for his meal when they stop at a roadside diner.

That night, Al drives so that Haskell can sleep. When it starts to rain, Al tries to wake up Haskell because he wants to put up the top of the convertible. But it seems that Haskell has died in his sleep. After Al pulls over, he checks Haskell’s pulse, but there is none.

Al is worried about what to do next. His voice-over narration tells viewers that he decides to hide Haskell’s body in a ditch off the side of the road, and he eventually talks himself into taking Haskell’s money, driver’s license, and car. Then it isn’t too big a leap to convince himself to exchange clothes with Haskell and assume his identity. Al drives Haskell’s car over the California state line: He is now much closer to meeting his girlfriend Sue again and continuing on with their lives.

But when Al stops at a gas station for water to add to the car’s engine, he spies a female hitchhiker waiting at the side of the road. He offers her a ride. She accepts, although she seems very suspicious of Al. She keeps eyeing him, but his voice-over narration seems oblivious to her. He tells himself that she must be facing difficult times to be hitchhiking to California and he is the one to help her.

Fate may be playing a role in Al Roberts’s story but he makes some bad decisions, too. For instance, Al didn’t have to pull Charles Haskell’s body into the scrub land by the road, take his money, and exchange clothes with him. He could have reported the death to the police. He also didn’t have to pick up Vera, but he convinces himself that he is helping her because he assumes that she is a woman in distress. She is in distress, but she proves that she can certainly take care of herself.

Vera berates Al and threatens to turn him in because she’s sure that he killed Haskell. Al learns that Haskell had given Vera ride and threw her out of the car when she wouldn’t sleep with him. She doesn’t believe Al’s account of events, and she thinks the authorities won’t believe him ether. Al didn’t alert the authorities that Haskell died because he was afraid that they wouldn’t believe him. Now he is afraid that Vera will report him.

I was surprised that Vera doesn’t suspect Al of planning to kill her. She isn’t the typical femme fatale. She is conniving and opportunistic, but he rebuffs all her efforts to seduce him. He’s not interested in her offer of sexual favors or in her grifts. He goes along with her because he is afraid that she will go to the police and tell them what she knows about Charles Haskell’s death. In that sense, she is a femme fatale: he is still under her sway but not for the typical reasons usually associated with film noir.

Vera and fate play an outsize role in Al Roberts’s downfall. Al has already alluded to it, as I mentioned earlier when he says that he wishes he had known what was waiting for him in Arizona. Al addresses fate more directly near the end of the film, not once but twice. He believes that fate has interfered in his life and all his plans with Sue Harvey. He again addresses the audience directly, maintaining that it isn’t so farfetched that the same set of events could have happened to anybody: “That’s life,” he tells us. “Whichever way you turn, fate sticks out a foot to trip you.” Later he says, “Fate or some mysterious force can put the finger on you or me. For no good reason at all.”

As I said, the first time I started watching Detour, I had to cut it short because I couldn’t stand listening to Vera berate Al when he picks her up hitchhiking. She barely pauses long enough to take a breath. All her lines are given in rapid-fire succession. I have to admire Ann Savage’s skill at delivering them, but I kept thinking that Al’s biggest mistake was not turning himself in just to get away from her. The second time I watched Detour, I made it all the way through and saw that Vera only got more shrill as the story went on. I almost (almost) found it comical that Al accidently kills Vera by cutting off her air supply. Al and Vera aren’t the most sympathetic characters, but I wanted to see what the heck happened to them.

Vera is an unforgettable character, and Ann Savage gives it all in her performance. She is one of many reasons to see Detour. I watched her with a mix of horror and fascination. Unlike Al Roberts, I could go along for the ride without suffering the consequences of Al’s decisions.

November 15, 1945, release date  •  Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer  •  Screenplay by Martin Goldsmith  •  Based on the novel Detour: An Extraordinary Tale by Martin Goldsmith  •  Music by Leo Erdody  •  Edited by George McGuire  •  Cinematography by Benjamin H. Kline

Tom Neal as Al Roberts  •  Ann Savage as Vera  •  Claudia Drake as Sue Harvey  •  Edmund MacDonald as Charles Haskell, Jr.  •  Tim Ryan as Gus, owner of the Nevada Diner  •  Esther Howard as Hedy, the diner waitress  •  Don Brodie as the used car salesman  •  Pat Gleason as Joe, the truck driver

Distributed by Producers Releasing Corporation, Inc. (PRC)  •  Produced by Producers Releasing Corporation, Inc.