As a huge fan of Film Noir, this rates as one of my favorites. The writing is full of that corny but wonderfully appropriate dialog that all noir greats feature. The picture is dim and soft and sometimes too dark to see anything, but I'd have been proud to have gone down in film history with "Detour" as my one and only directing credit. "The Third Man" is classified as a Film Noir and it's fantastic, but it was a high budget production with big time stars and an A-List director in Carol Reed. Edgar G. Ulmer isn't as well known, but who cares? He took what little was given him and made the most of it. "The Third Man" is a great noir but I truly favor low budget noir's like "Detour" The bigger the budget, the smoother and slicker the production. Yes there's lots of rear projection and lots of scenes filmed in a hotel room, but so what? And what if they did have the budget to actually drive around for real? For me, the fact that the whole film looks like a TV kine scope before kine scopes even existed adds to the atmosphere. And I also love the casting. Ann Savage is perfect as the shrew who's attractive, but who also has that worn, aged, definitely younger than she looks look that her character needs to be believable in the part. Tom Neal is no great actor, but he's perfectly cast in his part as a guy who's aways in the wrong place at the wrong time. And please do read his biography. This turns out to be one heck of a case of 'pre' type casting. If you love film noir, are reading this and have never seen it, for god's sake see it! If your reading this because you just want to share your love of the movie with other fans, thanks for joining the club. Not my favorite Film Noir, but definitely one of the best ever made. I love it so much, I just had to take the time to write this review. Please drop me a line to share your thoughts if you wish. There's nothing better than fans of any given film discussing their love of it. It's the next best thing to inviting everyone over for a screening!
