Detour

Director: Edgar G. Ulmer

1945 / 66min / 4K DCP

Hearing a certain tune spin on the jukebox in an all-night diner in Reno sends down-on-his-luck pianist Al Roberts (Tom Neal) on a traumatic trip down memory lane, recalling his fateful roadside encounter with Ann Savage’s aptly named femme fatale Vera and his subsequent subjugation to her, in Ulmer’s made-for-peanuts classic of noir absurdism, one of the priceless treasures to emerge from Hollywood’s so-called “Poverty Row” studios. “Possibly the bleakest, most doom-laden film noir ever… Savage’s sensational performance, combined with the real-life trajectory of Neal, who ended up going to prison for murdering his wife, have made this a tormented film with the despairing logic of nightmare.” —The Los Angeles Times

Distributor: Janus Films

Part of Neuro-Noir