Taking the detour to DETOUR (1945)

[Phillyrich]

I just ordered the 1945 noir: DETOUR, the transfer by IMAGE, supposedly the best print available. I've seen it once and it's a pretty neat little film, given its B limitations. It's grim, at times over-the-top outrageous, integrates music well, and has some neat pictorial composition.

I have read that DETOUR was made for about $30,000 and shot in only a few days. Is this true? Wouldn't that make it one of the all time cheapest successful quickies ever made?

[s.w.a.c.]

The Wikipedia page for Detour lists a few contradictory accounts of how long it took to film, and how much the film cost. Ulmer's daughter says it was more like three weeks, while Ann Savage later said it was closer to four. Noah Isenberg's book on the film puts the cost at closer to $100,000. Perhaps Ulmer just wanted it to make it look like he was more resourceful by making a relatively polished looking film with less time and money than was actually the case.

I just watched it last night as part of a local film noir retrospective at the Dal Art Gallery, I still chuckle when I see those reversed driving shots, where all of a sudden everyone's driving like they're in the UK or Australia (the film was flipped around when shots of cars going left to right didn't jibe with the viewer's perception of an East to West trip).