Product: Detour [VHS] (1945)
Rating: 5.0
Perversely Encouraging
I saw this in the middle of the night on cable more than 10 years ago and still haven't forgotten it. This may be the most despairing noir ever made. According to this, we are all just playthings in the hands of a sadistic god. But there's a kind of gallows humor in the movie that is perversely entertaining. The Tom Neal character is such a sad sack that he is more than a little responsible for bringing catastrophe on himself. And what catastrophe! It becomes so bad that it resembles a sick, shaggy-dog joke. And facing up the the worst in literature and film, if done with wit and compassion, is always cathartic. This is a stinky little gem.