DETOUR - #966

“People knock themselves out trying to buck Fate.”

To call a film noir cynical is to be a bit redundant. To call it cynical even for a film noir--well, you know then you have something truly acidic on your hands.

Such is Edgar G. Ulmer’s 1945 sweatbox Detour, the first ever B-movie inducted into the National Film Registry. At a scant 69 minutes, it’s a feverish thriller, its characters always in motion. Even when they are physically stuck in place, their minds are still moving, each player considering the next exit. It’s breathless and exhilarating and a little bit hateful. But you’ll love how hateful.

Tom Neal stars as Al Roberts, a juke joint piano player in love with an actress (Claudia Drake) who has left him stranded in New York to make a go at becoming a star in Hollywood. Fed up with being alone and, let’s face it, both jealous and horny, Roberts starts hitching across the country to see her. In Arizona, his luck seems to turn when he is picked up by Charles Haskell (Edmund MacDonald), a sleaze-ball gambler who is willing to take him all the way to the City of Angels. Ulmer and writer Martin Goldsmith (The Narrow Margin) make no bones about what a dirty guy Haskell is. When Roberts asks him about the fresh scratches on his arms and hands, Haskell tells him they came from a lady hitchhiker who didn’t show her gratitude in the way her benefactor would have liked. “I was tussling with the most dangerous animal in the world, a woman!” he says, before reminding us that any woman who would hitchhike is pretty much asking for it anyway.

Yup. Real nice guy.

“That’s life. Whichever way you turn, Fate sticks out a foot to trip you.”

Fate comes up a lot in Detour. It’s a common noir trope: man can’t outrun his past, nor can he change his destiny. Because we have made our past, and we are our own destiny. You know the cliché: wherever you go, there you are.

So when Roberts’ dame runs off chasing her imagined destiny, he must try to alter his trajectory. Likewise, Haskell has lost his fortune on the ponies in Miami, and now he’s looking to shake his own bad luck loose. Yet twists of fate means each will get their comeuppance. First, a random accident causes Haskell to end up dead, and a panicky Roberts leaves him in the middle of the desert and assumes his identity. Second, instant karma means Roberts picks up Vera (Ann Savage), the very woman that left those scars on the dead man. Knowing that Roberts isn’t who he says he is, Vera blackmails him. He’ll take her into L.A., sell the car, and give her the money, or she’ll make sure he’s sent down for the killing, innocence and circumstance be damned.

And he can’t leave her until she’s satisfied. Possibly because she’s a little bit lonely, possibly because she’s just plain mean. Not to mention her plans keep shifting the more opportunities she sees.
When you think about it, hitchhiking is a perfect metaphor for this kind of randomly predestined happenstance. Each pick-up is a roll of the dice. Factor in that like always finds like, and there’s no way these three people aren’t meeting on the road. It makes for too good of a story, and Fate loves a good story.

Vera is right to hold Roberts’ feet to the fire. He’s no innocent victim of circumstance, it doesn’t take much deliberation for him to do the wrong thing. Tom Neal would suffer his own turn of fate some time after Detour and go to jail for six years for the manslaughter of his wife. A sad but fitting noir end for a noir...well, not hero. Nor antihero. If anyone really roots for Roberts, it’s because Vera is so nasty. Tom Neal is all square-jawed nervousness, and competent enough in the role, but he’s eaten alive by Ann Savage, whose motor-mouthed opportunist dominates every scene from the moment Roberts spots her on the side of the road. While he’s no typical hero, she’s also not really our expected femme fatale. For one, she’s far more of an active participant, forcing action rather than needing to manipulate it with her sexuality. When she does try to seduce Roberts, it’s not as confident as one would expect from a Rita Hayworth or an Ava Gardner; in fact, Roberts’ voiceover lays it out from the start, her looks are not that of a movie star. Savage being an atypical starlet allows for Vera to have a surprising vulnerability, one the actress has the chops to exploit. Vera also has a fate she can’t outrun: a case of consumption that will likely kill her.

That is, if some other terrible calamity doesn’t claim her first.

“Yes, Fate or some mysterious force can put the finger on you or me for no good reason at all.”

Edgar G. Ulmer is infamous for his down and dirty productions. As explained in the supplementary documentary Edgar G. Ulmer: The Man Off-Screen, the Austrian director was exiled to Poverty Row, where he established his own bluntly lyrical style as he jumped from genre to genre, shooting pictures under impossible deadlines and even more impossible budgets. Accounts vary as to whether he wanted to work the cheapies to avoid studio interference or if he was left out of big-budget Hollywood after his own noir-worthy bad decision, marrying the boss’ girl. Ulmer himself was a self-mythologizer.  The filmmakers share audio from the man’s interviews with Peter Bogdanovich, which they then compare to known facts--often finding that Ulmer’s own legend is far more interesting.

Detour is a perfect example of what an industrious artist can do on a shoestring. It was shot primarily on two sets: the apartment that Roberts and Vera share in Los Angeles and the car. At least half the movie is in the car, which itself was set up in a Hollywood studio, the only traveling being done by whatever camera crew shot the footage for Detour’s rear projection. Ulmer manages to keep the feeling of confinement intentional. This pair is forever linked. Even as they cover miles of highway, even if Vera finally relents, they can’t escape each other.

Nor can they escape Fate. The transcendence of Detour from forgettable to classic is down to how unrelenting it is. There is no ray of hope. Not even the girlfriend, who in other noirs might be the earthy blonde who offers some kind of respite from the dark underworld; here, she represents temptation, jealousy, and the unattainable. Not to mention our own knowledge about how old Hollywood operated means we fill in some blanks about what we think is really going on with her out on the West Coast.

For Roberts, the more he tries to dig himself out of this trap, the more he becomes entangled. So it is that the second accidental death in Detour is so grisly--but not entirely unexpected, almost like he’s manifested his murderous desires through sheer will. And so it is that we find Roberts at a point where he’s already surrendered, reliving the tale for what might be the first time or the millionth, depending on who you are and when you are hearing it. His punishment is to be a part of this movie, and our reward is to be able to watch it again and again and again.

This disc provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.

PEOPLE ON SUNDAY (Blu-Ray) - #569

Sometimes a DVD release feels more like the product of a daring rescue mission than it does a movie premiere. Like the producers and technicians and artisans went spelunking into some cinematic cave to pull out a frail motion picture that had fallen in the hole and broken its leg.

People on Sunday is an enchanting curio from cinema's past, a 1930 silent film with murky origins, missing pieces, and a backstory as fascinating as what actually made it onto the screen. The German movie has a credits list that reads like a who's who of classic Hollywood craftsmen, but reading over the testimonials in the booklet that comes with the Criterion release of the film, there are many different takes on who did what. Given that the principle participants have long since shuffled off this mortal coil, there will likely be no getting to the bottom of it. All we have left is the mystery...and the wonderful film.

The movie is called People on Sunday, and that's exactly what it's about. Five lives intersecting on a Sunday afternoon, and specifically, four of them as they go from Berlin to the lakeside of Nikolassee to enjoy their day off. Put together as an independent production to compete with the all-powerful German studio UFA, People on Sunday was approached as an experiment. To keep costs down, the filmmakers found five non-actors and paired them together, playing versions of themselves, engaged to act in scripted scenarios, but in a manner prefiguring the Italian Neorealists. They were encouraged to be themselves, to not be actors.

The five are a taxi driver, a record store clerk, a wine salesman, a film extra, and a model. The driver and the model are dating, and the wine seller is their neighbor. The other two girls are friends. The wine seller, Wolfgang, meets the extra, Christl, on Saturday and makes a date with her for the day after. She brings along her friend Brigitte, and he brings along Erwin. Erwin's gal, Annie, never makes it out of bed, so he ends up being Wolfgang's wingman for the whole day. The wine seller is a true wolf, however, and his pushy pick-ups drive Christl away, and when he then turns his attention to Brigitte, it causes drama between the two girls. The romance plays out as they enjoy the water and the forest, having a picnic and playing records--a break from the working week, a respite from city life.

People on Sunday is itself meant as a temporary diversion, a representation of the brief pleasures the common man enjoys that would also give similar pleasure to all who watch it. And boy, does it ever work as such! This simple story of a day at the beach is charming and seductive, and even as Wolfgang reveals what a cad he is and the drudgery of Monday morning starts up again, the smile that the excursion has inspired doesn't fade. In addition to the story, the filmmakers also sidetrack into documentary footage of what other people are doing with their time off, both on the streets of Berlin and out in the sand of Nikolassee. Among these is a delightful centerpiece in which a photographer takes pictures of the daytrippers. It's a parade of German faces, young and old, people being themselves and frozen in time in the seconds it takes to create a snapshot. To go along with this, the Mont Alto Orchestra has created a period-sounding musical score, lending both humor and pathos to the proceedings. Their work is particularly effective when Annie plays her records, and the musicians recreate popular tunes from an afternoon in the sun long ago. (Criterion also offers a second score by Elena Kats-Chernin and the Czech Film Orchestra that is more contemporary in approach.)

In less talented hands, People on a Sunday could have ended up a mere trifle, but the eager young talent that gathered to pull this experiment off show a preternatural gift for making movies. It's no surprise that they would all eventually leave Germany and make a name for themselves in Hollywood. In terms of the credits, things break down something like this: Kurt Siodmak and Billie Wilder observed people on their actual Sunday activities, and out of their notes, Wilder fashioned a script. Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer directed, with Eugene Schüfftan serving as cinematographer and Fred Zinnemann assisting him. In the U.S., Kurt would become Curt and would write some of the great Universal monster movies, including The Wolf Man, and Billie would become Billy, writing and directing such marvelous motion pictures as Sabrina [review] and Ace in the Hole [review]. Amongst Robert Siodmak's later credits are the excellent film noirs The Killers and Criss Cross, while Ulmer is maybe best known for Detour. Fred Zinnemann also moved on to direct, with credits like Member of the Wedding [review], High Noon [review], and From Here to Eternity.

Eugene Schüfftan may be the least recognized name amongst this roster, though Criterion fans should know him as the man who shot Eyes Without a Face and Port of Shadows, in additon to some Hollywood pictures. His cinematography on The Hustler even earned him an Oscar. Schüfftan also directed three short films, and his 1931 effort Ins Blaue hinein (Into the Blue) is included here as a supplement. It's a sweet film, and a talkie--though the sound is mainly rudimentary dubbing done in post. The jaunty tale has much in common with People on Sunday: it details three colleagues from different social classes out for an afternoon ride in one of their cars. They pick up a young lady that one of the guys knows and compete for her affection before deciding to form a dog washing business together. It's a breezy bit of fun that turns to full comedy by show's end.

Also in the supplements is a half-hour documentary from 2000 called Weekend am Wannsee. In it, filmmaker Gerald Koll attempts to reconstruct the history of People on Sunday, partially by talking to the man literally reconstructing the print, Martin Koerber. For anyone who ever wonders just how a film like this is out back together, there is a fascinating explanation of how many versions Koerber had to work with, where they came from, and what they each had to offer. Surviving participants Curt Siodmak and actress Brigitte Borchert are also interviewed, and the documentary explores what happened to all the players following the movie's release.

The Blu-Ray of People on Sunday uses a print that cobbles together the most complete version of the film from a variety of sources. No absolutely whole version exists. Despite a warning card at the start of the movie alerting viewers to the fact that this version was pieced together from several prints, I would have never guessed. Though there is some damage and scratches here and there, nothing stands out as being obviously sourced from any different places, not nearly as much as, for example, the Argentinean clips in The Complete Metropolis [review]. The overall presentation is stellar, this rescue team brought People on Sunday out of the darkness with a minimum of injury.

This disc was provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.