Archive of films Detour / Detour

USA
1945, 67 min

Section: Out of the Past
Year: 2019

A failed jazz pianist sets out to visit his fiancée in Hollywood. But the country he drives through is dark and rainy, and the jukebox is always playing the wrong song. A noir tale about the unluckiest man ever to grace the silver screen.

Restored in 2018 by the Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation in collaboration with Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique, the Museum of Modern Art, and Cinémathèque Française. Restoration funding provided by the George Lucas Family Foundation.

Synopsis

Al Roberts plays the piano at a New York dive. Wanting more, his fiancée heads for Los Angeles to pursue her dreams. Al eventually decides to join her, but his journey hitchhiking across the country ends differently than he imagined. He’s picked up by a lone gambler named Haskell, who later dies in an unfortunate accident. Al doesn’t know what to do, and circumstances force him to adopt Haskell’s identity. But his bad luck is far from over – in fact, it’s only just begun: his transcontinental journey turns into an unstoppable slide down a slippery slope that leads all the way to murder.

Nikola Paggio

Restored in 2018 by the Academy Film Archive and the Film Foundation in collaboration with Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique, the Museum of Modern Art and Cinémathèque Française. Restoration funding was provided by the George Lucas Family Foundation.

About the director

Edgar G. Ulmer (1904, Olomouc, Austria-Hungary – 1972, Woodland Hills, California). Selected filmography: The Black Cat (1934), Detour (1945), Club Havana (1945), The Strange Woman (1946), The Man from Planet X (1951), The Daughter of Dr. Jekyll (1957), Hannibal (1959, co-dir. Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia), The Cavern (1964)

Contacts

The Film Foundation, Inc.
7920 Sunset Boulevard, 6th Floor, CA 90046, Los Angeles
United States of America
Tel: +1 212 258 0860
www: www.film-foundation.org

Films Sans Frontieres
, , Paris
France
E-mail: [email protected]
www: www.films-sans-frontieres.fr

About the film

Black & white, DCP

Section:	Out of the Past

Director:	Edgar G. Ulmer
Screenplay:	Martin Goldsmith
Dir. of Photography:	Benjamin H. Kline
Music:	Leo Erdody
Editor:	George McGuire
Art Director:	Edward C. Jewell
Producer:	Leon Fromkess
Production:	PRC Pictures, Inc.
Cast:	Tom Neal, Ann Savage, Claudia Drake, Edmund MacDonald
Sales:	Films Sans Frontieres
Contact:	The Film Foundation, Inc.