Synopsis
Al Roberts (Neal), having coffee in a roadside diner, becomes upset when customers play “I Can’t Believe That You’re In Love With Me” on the jukebox. The song cues Al’s thoughts about his unfortunate past.
Al, a New York City nightclub piano player, who dabbles in Chopin on the side, loves Sue Harvey (Drake), a singer at the nightclub. Sue sings a caressing version of “I Can’t Believe That You’re In Love With Me”.
Al wants to get married, but Sue has different plans. She leaves the Big Apple to pursue a career in Hollywood. Al, lonely, is determined to follow her.
Being flat broke Al has no choice but to hitchhike across the continent. Things don’t go too badly until Al reaches Arizona where he meets Charles Haskell (MacDonald). Haskell offers to take Al to Los Angeles; Al will share the driving. Al notices that Haskell has deep scratches on his hand. Haskell says he picked up a “tomato” who was not as nice as he expected. After the tussle, he threw her out on her head.
That night, it begins to rain while Al is driving across the desert. Al stops to raise the top. Haskell, apparently asleep, is unresponsive. Al opens the passenger door, and Haskell falls out and hits his head. Haskell is dead, and Al panics. He takes Haskell’s money and ID and hides the body.
On the road, Al offers a ride to a hitchhiker. Vera (Savage), an aggressively unpleasant woman, asks Al what he did with Haskell’s body. Vera is the woman who scratched Haskell. In return for not contacting the police, she demands all the money Al took from Haskell. She also demands the money from the sale of the car. Al has to agree to her demands.
They rent a cheap apartment. Vera gets drunk and again threatens Al with the police if he does not comply to her demands. She takes the bedroom, he sleeps on the wall bed. In the morning, they drive to a used car lot and agree to a price for the car. Just before the deal is complete, Vera changes her mind and cancels the sale.
Vera has seen a newpaper article reporting that Haskell’s rich father is dying. She wants Al to impersonate Haskell and claim the inheritance. Al says he knows nothing about Haskell or his family and could not impersonate him successfully. Vera refuses to accept his argument.
That night, they continue to argue as they both get very drunk. Vera, threatening to phone the police, drags the phone (which is on a long cord) into the bedroom and locks the door. She falls onto the bed in a drunken stupor, the cord around her throat. Outside the bedroom, Al begs Vera not to call and pulls on the phone cord. The cord tightens around her neck and chokes her. Al, knowing that this time he is a killer, even if an inadverent one, runs away. Haskall should be wanted for the murder. He cannot stay in Los Angeles or return to New York. Sue is lost to him. Silently, he wishes Sue happiness.
Al’s thoughts return to the present, and he leaves the diner. His only choice is to keep moving. One thing he knows, “someday a car wilI pick me up that I never thumbed”. As he thinks this, a highway patrol car pulls up, and Al gets in. His thoughts continue, “or some mysterious force will put the finger on me or you for no good reason.”
Discussion
Through a combination of bad luck and his own poor judgement, Al finds himself in a desperate situation. His doom is sealed when he meets and becomes entangled with Vera, his fellow hitchhiker and nemesis.
Detour is justly famous, not only as a classic film noir, but as an example of a creative director making a really good movie on a minuscule budget. Detour was made for PRC (Producers Releasing Corporation), an outfit at the bottom of the Hollywood studio food chain. Typical PRC releases included Jungle Siren (1942), Delinquent Daughters (1944), Frontier Outlaws (1944), and Devil Bat’s Daughter (1946).
Director Edgar G. Ulmer claimed to prefer working for Poverty Row studios like PRC because there was less front office interference and thus more freedom for the director.
Al is played by Tom Neal (1914-1972), whose sad eyes and downcast countenance make him ideal for the part. Although his screen career didn’t amount to much, Neal’s private life was colorful, to say the least. Six years after making Detour he was involved in a dispute with noted Hollywood actor Franchot Tone over bombshell actress Barbara Payton. Tone ended up with multiple injuries, and Neal’s acting career was sidetracked. In 1965 Neal was tried for the murder of his third wife, convicted of manslaughter, and spent six years in prison before being paroled. He died of a heart attack a few months later at age 58.
Vera was performed by Ann Savage (1921-2008), whose real name was Bernice Maxine Lyon. A classic description of the actress is to be found in Ian and Elisabeth Cameron’s little book entitled Dames (1969): “Miss Savage looks in profile quite ordinary, though not particularly pretty - like a younger Judith Anderson - but when she turns and looks at the camera, she has eyes so terrifying that one wonders how those that beheld her in the flesh managed to avoid getting turned to stone.”
Savage’s bravura performance as Vera makes her one of the most memorable villainesses in screen history. Few A-level actresses could have matched, let alone surpassed, her for sheer nastiness. She could also play more conventional roles; see, for example, Scared Stiff (1945; Frank McDonald), a rather lame Jack Haley comedy.
Perhaps the most memorable moment in Detour occurs at around 48 minutes in. Al and Vera are stuck together in a seedy hotel room, trapped by fate and her greed. They despise each other. Yet, in a rare moment of softening, Vera, hand on the seated Al’s shoulder, says: “I’m goin’ to bed.” Although he vehemently refuses to join her, the invitation is clear. How this sequence got by the Breen Office censors is anybody’s guess. In a 1945 American movie the idea of a woman, even a woman of Vera’s low character, inviting any man, let alone a man who’s not her husband, to join her in the sack would be like attacking Motherhood or calling the Pope a Communist. This is known as flying under the radar. Maybe that’s why Edgar Ulmer liked working at PRC: he could get away with stuff that would have been unthinkable in a bigger-budgeted film.
The song, “I Can’t Believe That You’re In Love With Me”, is heard frequently. Claudia Drake, who plays Sue, sings it twice. In the night club where the two work, Sue sings accompanied by Al on the piano. The song symbolizes the love between them. The film opens with Al, who is on the run, sitting in a wayside diner, He is unhappy at hearing the song played on the juke box. At this point in Al’s life, the song signifies his permanent separation from Sue. As the film recounts the unfortunate events that brought Al to this lonely place, the audience learns the significance of the song.
“I Can’t Believe That You’re In Love With Me” was written in 1926, music by Jimmy McHugh and lyrics by Clarence Gaskill. The song, a pop standard, has been recorded by many prominent singers.