Detour (1945 film)

The ultra-cheap melodrama Detour, shot in six days by Edgar G. Ulmer, has developed cult status as one of the most stylish B pictures ever produced.

Hitchhiker Al Roberts (Tom Neal) gets mixed up with a femme fatale (Ann Savage) who "looked like she'd just been thrown off the crummiest freight train in the world." The story is told in narration addressed directly to the audience who hears not what happened, but what Al wants us to believe happened. Its hackneyed dialog, quick-and-dirty camera work, and shabby no-budget rear projection combine to create a bleak nightmare existence.

Detour was added to the National Film Registry in 1992.