Movie: Detour (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1945)
I very much like 40's/50's noirs, and in particular their sense of the uncanny. The heroes are plunged in a world full of inscrutable forces that move their lives into directions they can't anticipate or understand, in part because the inner thoughts and feelings of the characters are a bit of a mystery, both to themselves and to us in the audience. I found Detour a tad disappointing as it only really evokes that feeling of unknowability at tbe beginning, when B-rate New York pianist Al Roberts (Tom Neal) falls in love with singer Sue (Claudia Drake), only to see her move to Hollywood a week before they were siupposed to be married. As Al narrates how much they loved each other and how surprised he was by her decision, Ulmer's direction casts some murkiness over his story, emphasising Al's subjectivity. You would not bet your savings that Sue would share Al's account of their time together, but you also can't quite discount that Al may be right.
My favourite little flourish in the film comes when Al explains that he tried to call Sue in Hollywood. Ulmer cuts to a switchboard operator working in New York, then the camera moves along a highway stretch filled with telephone masts, followed by a cut to a switchboard operator in Los Angeles. Such a visualisation of a journey of a long distance phone call is really cool to see in 2023, but it would have been effective in 1945 too as it both emphasises the distance between Al and Sue, and the sheer wonder of long distance calls being possible. It makes an ordinary act seem strange. And when we eventually do see Sue pick up the call, we only hear Al's end of the conversation. Similarly, another shot I liked is of Sue singing in LA, flanked by three silhouetted musicians we only see from the back. It's never clear whether these are the shadows of the musicians, or their 'real' selves. It could also be that they only exist in Al's imagination.
In any case, after his call to Sue, Al decides to hitchhike to Las Angeles, getting to Arizona when he steps into the car of Charles Haskell Jr (Edmund MacDonald). On their journey to L.A., Haskell dies, and Al responds to this as if it is his fault, taking on the identity of the dead man, and effectively becoming a convict, despite being innocent. The real trouble begins once he picks up hitchiking Vera (Ann Savage), who knows Charles and starts blackmailing Al. From that moment on, the film becomes a bit repetitive, without any sense of ambiguity to Vera and Al's' behaviour. It doesn't help that, unlike at the beginning, Al's narration now doesn't complicate what we see on screen, but merely reinforces it, turning it into a rather straightforward story of a sullen, pouty and self-pitying man who made bad decisions perfectly consistent with his character, and now faces the easily explicable consequences of those decisions. There is ultimately very little mystery to Detour. It does have a gloriosly fatalistic ending and a wonderful live-wire performance of scornful sarcasm by Ann Savage, that seems to have been studied by the likes of Frances McDormand and Holly Hunter. It's not a surprise these two are Coens regulars, but while Detour is an obvious influence on them, I think their (and many other) films have improved on it.
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