I’m kicking off 2023 by trying to watch and review one movie every day for the first 90 days, all of which will be 90 minutes or less.
Title: Detour
Release Date: November 15, 1945
Director: Edgar G. Ulmer
Production Company: Producers Releasing Company
Summary/Review:
Made by “the smallest and least prestigious of the Hollywood film studios of the 1940s” (according to Wikipedia), Detour is a lowest-of-budgets movie that distills the essence of film noir down to an efficient 68 minutes. Al Roberts (Tom Neal) is a pianist who hitchhikes from New York to join his aspiring actress girlfriend in Hollywood. When an accidental death leaves him in a compromising position, Al takes on the identity of another man (as well as his car, clothing, and wallet).
But when Al picks up a hitchhiker himself, a woman who calls herself “Vera” (Ann Savage), it turns out that she knows his whole story and manipulates him into bigger crimes. Dripping with venom, Savage’s performance is one of the most feral of Classic Hollywood. The movie ends on a brilliant twist that I didn’t anticipate at all. Of course, Al is an unreliable narrator, and he’s shown telling this whole story to himself. So perhaps what we’re seeing is just the version of events that Al can make himself live with?
Rating: ****1/2
Panorama of the Mountains 
In one of our movie drafts, Benn Bell wrote a review on it, which inspired me to watch it. It was pretty danged good for low budget and only 68 minutes! Here’s the link to Benn’s review:
https://slicethelife.com/2021/01/04/2021-movie-draft-round-1-pick-1/
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There’s enough similarities in my review to Benn’s that you’d I’d read it before I wrote mine, ha-ha!
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