Detour

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unpublished letters and interviews to provide an animated and thorough 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