180. DETOUR (1945)

Running Time: 67 minutes
Directed By: Edgar G. Ulmer
Written By: Martin Goldsmith, from his novel
Main Cast: Tom Neal, Ann Savage, Claudia Drake, Edmund MacDonald

SAY MISTER, WHAT'S EATIN' YA'?

I've been eyeballing "Detour" for quite sometime now, mainly due to it's short running time and my knowing that it would be an easy one to knock out and get one step closer to my next TOP 20. Today, I finally got around to taking a look at "Detour", which is currently streaming on Netflix, and it was actually quite good.

Al Roberts (Neal) is a pianist in a little, New York City joint and his main squeeze Sue Harvey (Drake) is a singer there. Al isn't so happy with his life, but Sue makes him happy and makes him even more happy to know that they will soon be married. Well, that is until Sue calls it off, citing that she wants to head out West to see if she can make it big. Al pleads with her and tells her it's a rotten idea, but she wants to give it a shot, so she goes. Al continues to play the piano in the joint, but soon decides to go out West so that he can be with Sue and so that they may get married. She welcomes the idea, but Al doesn't have a nickel to his name, so takes to the road with his thumb in the air, trying his best to hitchhike to California. He gets about as far as Oklahoma when a well dressed man in a nice car gives him a lift and greets him with the good news that he's going all the way to Los Angeles and he'd be happy to bring Al along. Al is grateful to the man, named Charles Haskell Jr. (MacDonald), and when night falls, he offers to drive so that Haskell can sleep. About halfway through the night, it begins to rain and Al tries to wake Charles to see if he should put the convertible top up. He can't get him awake and when he opens the passenger side door, where Haskell is sleeping, Charles falls out and knocks his head on a rock. He's dead. Maybe he was already dead or maybe the rock killed him, but one things for sure - It's not going to look good when a rich man turns up dead and he just happened to be giving a drifter a lift.

In case you're unaware, this is a film noir and it's a very good one at that. I often wonder why I don't see more noir flicks, because they're always so seedy and I almost always end up loving the ones I do see. While I wouldn't go so far as to say I LOVED "Detour", I did enjoy it quite a bit. It was a film that ran just a smidgen over an hour and for the short time, it was time well spent establishing characters and plot ideas and sucking you in, in record time. Al Roberts is your run of the mill noir character - He's down on his luck, he's a musician and he's in trouble. On top of that he has a couple of dames breathing down his neck, one of which loves him and the other that might be dangerous. There's been murder and some debauchery and it all adds up to a very good noir film. Tom Neal was really good and while doing a little research I learned that Neal actually killed his third wife by shooting her in the back of the head with a .45-caliber gun. Prosecutors sought the death penalty, but Tom got off with ten years in prison.

I think the real gem of "Detour" was Ann Savage as Vera. She was so nasty that she was borderline hilarious. Take a look at this line...

Roberts: "Where'd you hide the butts?"
Vera: They're on the table, sucka!"

She had a tone in her voice that would become very high when she delivered certain dialogue and almost comparable to that of a high pitched whistle, like when she called Al a "chicken!". She was a really good find here and fit perfectly into the seedy world of this noir. In conclusion, good story, good actors and they both make for a perfect film in this noir world.

RATING: 7/10 I've still got plenty of film noir in the book to keep me busy and who knows, maybe someday we'll do a "Tribute to Noir".

MOVIES WATCHED: 283
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 718

July 8, 2011 2:48pm

84. The Black Cat (1934)

Running Time: 64 minutes
Directed By: Edgar G. Ulmer
Written By: Edgar G. Ulmer, from the story House of Doom by Edgar Allan Poe
Main Cast: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, David Manners, Julie Bishop

MONSTER MASH-UP

I have to say, after enjoying "Frankenstein" and "Dracula" as much as I did, I figured this would be a no brainer for an enjoyable film for me, but it turned out to be a very tedious and dull sixty minutes, that unfortunately, I'll never get back.

Mr. and Mrs. Peter Alison are vacationing in Hungary and while riding by train, they're informed of a mix-up in the reservations and that they must share a train compartment with Dr. Vitus Werdegast (Lugosi). While on the train ride, Werdegast informs them that he's spent the last fifteen years in a prison camp and that he has become one of very few to walk away from the camp alive. Once exiting the train, the three share a bus into the nearest town, but it ends up crashing and Mrs. Alison is slightly injured. Dr. Werdegast, is on his way to visit Hjalmar Poelzig, am Austrian architect, with whom Werdergast has some unfinished business. Upon arriving at the home the doctor treats Mrs. Alison's injuries and then confronts Poelzig, revealing that he believes Poelzig has captured his wife and daughter, while he was in prison, and that he wants them returned to him. Poelzig informs Werdegast that they've both died.

The rest of the movie revolves around Poelzig's desire to keep Mr. and Mrs. Alison at his home, and that he particularly wants Mrs. Alison so that he may sacrifice her on the night of the Dark Moon, to comply with his satanic rituals. Werdegast, however, wants them to be set free and the two play a game of chess to make the final decision regarding the fate of Mr. and Mrs. Alison. The title of the film refers to the heightened phobia that Werdegast has of black cat's, but that's only addressed a couple of times in the film and never really becomes much of a plot point.

Despite the silly title of the picture, a lot of things actually go unexplained in the film, which lead to my eventual dislike of the movie altogether. The fear of black cat's seems to be something they just threw in for no reason, and it's never fully explained or played off of. They also fail to explain the reasoning behind why Poelzig keeps his former lovers dead bodies encased in glass, other than the fact to make the man seem a little more creepy. There's also a scene where Mrs. Alison, rises from her slumber, right after she's been in the bus crash. She comes into the room and is acting very peculiar, and it's even mentioned, as Mr. Alison asks why she was acting that way and Werdegast makes up some phony excuse, but that ends up being yet another point of the film that's never fully explained. Karloff and Lugosi aren't bad, but even their talents can't save this terrible picture. This was a very sad attempt at a horror movie and honestly, I wouldn't even clasify it as such. Lots of plot holes and unexplained details, make "The Black Cat" a bust.

RATING: 1.5/10 Despite better than average ratings for "Frankenstein" and "Dracula", this film couldn't even muster a '2'.

NEXT UP: Judge Priest...My first John Ford film...from the "1001" book, that is and the review should be up later on this afternoon.

January 29, 2010 1:34pm