Detour

Detour is a 1945 American independent film noir directed by Edgar G. Ulmer starring Tom Neal and Ann Savage. The screenplay was adapted by Martin Goldsmith and Martin Mooney (uncredited) from Goldsmith's 1939 novel of the same title, and released by the Producers Releasing Corporation, one of the so-called Poverty Row film studios in mid-20th-century Hollywood. The film, which today is in the public domain and freely available for viewing at various online sources, was restored by the Academy Film Archive in 2018. In April that year, the 4K restoration premiered in Los Angeles at the TCM Festival. A Blu-Ray and DVD was released in March 2019 from the Criterion Collection. In 1992, Detour was selected for the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Plot Al Roberts, an unemployed piano player, hitches a ride, arriving at a roadside diner in Reno, Nevada. Another customer in the diner plays a song on the jukebox, that disturbs Al, for it reminds him of his former life in New York City. Al recalls a time there when he was bitter about squandering his musical talent playing in a cheap nightclub. After his girlfriend Sue Harvey, the nightclub's lead singer, quits her job and leaves New York to seek fame in Hollywood, Al becomes depressed. After anguishing a while, Al decides to travel to California to marry Sue. With little money to his name, Al is forced to hitchhike across the country. In Arizona, bookie Charles Haskell Jr. gives Al a ride in his convertible and tells him that he is in luck; for he is driving to Los Angeles to place a bet on a horse. During the drive, he has Al pass him his pills on several occasions, which he swallows as he drives. That night, Al drives while Haskell sleeps. When a rainstorm forces Al to pull over to put up the convertible's top, he is unable to rouse Haskell. Al opens the passenger-side door and Haskell tumbles out, falling to the ground and striking his head on a rock.