It's quite surprising to see such amazing films in those years.Al Roberts is traveling to Hollywood to meet his girl friend. The poor man has no enough money to travel. So, he tries different ways to get there. A strange man gives him a lift. He offer him food also. On the long drive,the stranger takes a nap and Roberts drives the car. Later he finds out that the stranger is dead. Afraid of the Police, he hides the dead body in the woods, and take the man's identity. On his way, he offers lift to a woman, that puts him into more troubles.A really interesting plot, and very well made movie. A must watch film for all movie maniacs. Do not miss it. #KiduMovie

If you have a friend or family member who asks you, "What on earth is film noir?" Show them this movie. It has all of the hallmarks of a great noir flick: deceit, blackmail, twisted love, very unfortunate circumstances, unforeseen tragedy; and it is shot in low-budget black-and-white with minimal yet atmospheric sets. However, it all works most wonderfully, or uber-suspensefully. Detour, unlike many other fine noir films, has breathtaking pace; it doesn't stall or get mired in overly clever - or hopelessly cryptic - dialogue. That's not to say that the dialogue is on the cheap or not sharp; why, it certainly is. The weave of action and dialogue is just perfect: It's not a run of garish violence or verbose mega-star monologues. In fact, I think I'll watch it again tonight. Oh, BTW, I stumbled upon Detour on a Friday night in the mid-80s. It was featured on that old Night Flight series. I've been hooked on film noir ever since. Enjoy!

When the pianist Al Roberts gets tired of being miserable and missing his girlfriend who traveled across the country to seek her fortune in Hollywood, he decides to leave New York behind. He has no money to pay for the trip from one coast to the other, so he decides to hitchhike, something that proves to be his downfall. A man who picked him up dies during the journey and Al panics when he pessimistically expects to be accused of the death. He steals not only the man's car, but also his identity and stows away the corpse in a ditch. He then decides to pick up a hitchhiker named Vera, but he will soon regret it because she seems to know his dark secret and will not hesitate to take advantage of it.The story feels more than a little strained on more than one occasion. It's hard not to fall in love the hopelessness that constitutes Detour. A low-budget thriller directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. Sure, it's an extremely simple B-movie, but it is packed full of interesting quotes, friendly cynicism, pitch black darkness and at least as much rain. It is insanely entertaining to see Vera and Al throw sharp barbs at each other while the tones are so miserable that they find it hard to laugh at them.With a playing time of over 70 minutes says Detour goodbye long before it has time to start to feel tiring.

As I mentioned to my brother that I had watched this film he informed me that it basically had no budget. This made a great deal of sense to me since I did not see much production value in it - this was noticeable even with it being an older film. To me Detour seems like a very rushed attempt at trying to make a noir film that works - not necessarily a great noir film, but one that fits the tenants of the genre. We start with Al Roberts as the wanderer who chooses not to be sociable; there is something troubling him, and he conveys this through, what seems to me to be, over-acting. We get a shift in chronology (a tenant of film noir which I love) and flash back to when he was a pianist and happy with a girlfriend, and this is where his journey begins. He needs to travel west to be with his beloved, but he needs to hitchhike in order to do so. Roberts meets a man named Haskell and the titular detour to where Roberts needs to go occurs on this journey. He inconveniently ends up in a situation where Haskell dies from what seems to be an accidental hit on his head as he falls out of the car. Then, because plot, Roberts happens to unknowingly stumble across Haskell's wife at a gas station, and he allows her to ride with him. As a complicated love triangle is almost formed, Haskell's wife blackmails Roberts into helping her squeeze money out of Haskell's car and inheritance by threatening to bring her husband's murder to the police. Once again, because plot, Roberts accidentally (yes it was an accident with a phone line) strangles Vera and kills her. He becomes the typical unreliable noir narrator at this point since this could have likely gone another way. All of this was rushed in just over the span of an hour. It is a noir film that has a cohesive plot, but evoked little interest from me. The ending voice-over about his acceptance of getting picked up one day over the image of him actually getting picked up by authorities was intriguing, but not the sort of ending which would rank this film among the likes of Sunset Boulevard or Double Indemnity.