Detour

AroView: Often touted as the best B-movie ever made, this blistering film noir upstaged many of the Hollywood main features it was paired with. Short on budget and running time, but huge on sheer attitude, Ann Savage’s ghastly femme fatale is one of the most wicked ever committed to film.

“Revived in a new restored print at the NZIFF2023, “Detour” (1945) is unique in the Film Noir canon for being made on a shoestring and shot in less than a week, or so legend has it. Influential on Hitchcock’s “Psycho” and its ilk, it is a road movie that detours into a treacle black comedy once Ann Savage turns up to play what is likely the most vitriolic femme fatale in screen history. Tom Neal is also excellent as the poor schlub she mercilessly manipulates, and his narration is beautifully written and sincerely conveyed. It was then totally bizarre that his real life would end up imitating his character’s fate in this sterling slab of pulp fiction.” ~AroVision on Facebook