Detour + De Overkant

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

Al Roberts always seems to draw the short end of the stick. Th nightclub pianist hitchhikes from New York to Los Angeles to win back his love, but along the way he gets saddled with a dead body. When he consequently picks up Vera, one of the most vicious femmes fatales in cinema history, there seems to be no end to his nightmare.

DETOUR (1945, Edgar Ulmer) is one of those Poverty Row B movies – produced by small Hollywood studios for a next to nothing budget during the 20s through 50s – that transcends its pulp atmosphere and became the epitome of wat a gritty film noir ought to be. The main character’s despair is never eased by hope. The movie gained cult status and would reach one of the highest profit margins of any film noir ever. Hell is other people, philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre once famously wrote. And it seems like he had Vera in mind when writing those immortal words.

DETOUR is screened together with a short film where all hope is lost as well: DE OVERKANT (1966), by Belgian director Herman Wuyts, shows a dictorial regime, where everyone has to walk in line, or gets shot.