Al Roberts (Tom Neal, The Brute Man) makes a miserable living in New York as the pianist of The Break O’ Dawn Club. The one thing in life that tickles his ivories — gal pal Sue (Claudia Drake, The Return of Rin Tin Tin) — now lives an entire coastline away. One day, he impulsively ditches his bench post and hitchhikes his way toward L.A.

Finding a ride with a man named Haskell (Edmund MacDonald, Sherlock Holmes in Washington), all’s swell for Al … until an accident leaves our musical hitchhiker with one big hitch: a dead driver. Afraid the police will assume Al murdered Haskell for financial gain, he takes the departed’s identity, car and — oh, what the hell — $768. Al picks up a thumb-waver of his own in the tough-talking Vera (Ann Savage, 1945’s Scared Stiff), who just happens to have made Haskell’s acquaintance.

Often called the greatest B picture in cinema history, Detour is a rear-projection classic of film noir and Poverty Row production. With Edgar G. Ulmer (1934’s The Black Cat) behind the wheel, the hourlong wonder moves with admirable efficiency and — assuming you can swallow a couple of scenes of Sue belting out on-tune standards — nary a slump.

The joy in watching Neal and Savage (appropriately named) bark and bicker is exceeded only in taking in the dour dialogue of screenwriter Martin Goldsmith (The Narrow Margin). The lines crackle in the unnatural noir style; to wit: “There’s oughta be a law against dames,” “My goose was cooked” and “You look like you’ve been thrown off the crummiest freight train in the world.”

Later, Al says, “Like ya? I love ya. My favorite sport is being held prisoner.” You’ll share the sentiment if Detour works its spell correctly. It should; it’s remarkably entertaining for something the low-rent PRC studio intended only as time-filling piffle, a cardboard-constructed crime drama in which “the most dangerous animal in the world (is) a woman.” —Rod Lott

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