These "A-features" such as The Maltese Falcon and Murder, My Sweet, were noticeably darker than pre-war films, sufficiently so for French critics to label them films noirs. Once noir's influence had spread however, the "new mood of cynicism, pessimism and darkness" that was its essence, became more apparent in the smaller B-movie productions that began sharing the bill with A-features. The purpose of this essay is to discuss Detour, a notable B-movie noir, in relation to standard A-features, arguing that its dark vision is more intense and pervasive than theirs. It will also be suggested that the film's low budget is itself a primary factor in this noirceur or blackness.
In an important essay James Demico wrote that the typical noir narrative involves:
A man whose experience of life has left him sanguine and bitter [and who] meets a not-innocent woman of similar outlook to whom he is sexually and fatally attracted. Through this attraction, either because the woman induces him to it or because it is the natural result of their relationship, the man comes to cheat, attempt to murder or actually murder a second man to whom the woman is unhappily or unwillingly attached (generally he is her husband or lover), an act which brings about the sometimes metaphoric but usually literal destruction of the woman, the man to whom she is attached and frequently the protagonist himself.
The narrative of a typical A-noir, Double Indemnity, follows this outline very closely: Walter Neff is seduced by Phyllis Dietrichson and persuaded to kill her husband. After the murder their relationship deteriorates, culminating in a mutual shooting. Detour passes all these signposts - the disillusioned protagonist (Al), the femme fatale (Vera), the dead man to whom she is attached (Haskell). But there are several important differences which make Detour's narrative even more tragic and deplorable. Firstly, the man in Vera's past is not her husband but a driver who stopped for her while she was hitchhiking, and whose aggressive attempts at seduction forced her to retaliate by scarring his hand. He is therefore far from being the wronged husband of Double Indemnity.
Haskell's death is accidental. This might suggest that it is free of the dark overtones of Double Indemnity. Noirceur, however, resumes its dominance by the fact that the event still initiates Al's destruction, despite his innocence. While Neff was persuaded to commit murder, and therefore deserved his end, Al is simply an honest man who became involved by chance and hasn't yet met Vera. The blame for his downfall cannot therefore reside with an immoral woman who is punished at the conclusion of the narrative with death, thereby ensuring that justice is done. In Detour there is no justice, only luck ('Sure, all bad!'). It is the notion that Al is a victim of cruel fate rather than a cruel protagonist that gives Detour its dark resonance. Clearly, the "mysterious force" Al feverishly warns us of is more formidable than the machinations of any single character.
In many ways this narrative had been dictated by economic factors, and much of Detour's noirceur can be seen to derive from budgetary considerations. Paul Kerr has noted that "B units [were] compelled to carve our distinctive and identifiable styles for themselves in order to differentiate their product." This led to Detour becoming overtly noir in order to stand out among top-billing A-features. It achieved this to such an extent that Hossein Amini has written, "even the label film noir doesn"t do justice to the sheer blackness that pervades its story.'
Detour employs only three sets, plus some location shooting and stock footage. It is feasible that Martin Goldsmith may have based his script around scenarios that induce an intense claustrophobia, since these would require minimal sets, props, costumes, and actors, and would not strain the budget. The result is several lengthy interior scenes such as that in the hotel room, in which only two characters feature. This scene's purpose is to depict Al's claustrophobic reaction to being imprisoned by Vera, an effect which Detour, with its paucity of production values, was ideally suited for. The cramped, impoverished set highlights Al and Vera's drastic situation as they eke out the money stolen from Haskell. Each character wears only one costume for the majority of the film, and Al in particular becomes increasingly dishevelled. This emphasises their sense of being destitute and on the run. Kim Newman has written, "this is a film whose literal poverty seeps into every frame, suggesting the nightmare of a main character whose very life is low budget."
As well as being cheaper, low-key lighting in many scenes invests them with the fatalistic, restless mood characteristic of both A and B noirs. But Detour takes the technique to extremes. When Al is informed by his girlfriend, Sue, that she is leaving him for Hollywood, the scene is conducted in an oppressive black welter of darkness and fog. The sifting clouds of blackness seem to forebode of Al's imminent destruction, obscuring him as Sue walks away and leaving him groping about for answers. The severance of their relationship, and Al's dark fate, is emphasised when the light above the nightclub door is extinguished as they leave.
