Detour

Detour (1945)


Directed by

Edgar G. Ulmer








A piano player, Al, sets off hitchhiking his way to California to be with his fiancée who left to become a star in Hollywood. Along the way, a stranger in a convertible gives him a ride, and it all seems great.

However while driving; Al stops to put the top up because it was raining heavily. He discovers that the owner of the car has died in his sleep. Al panics and dumps the body in a gully, takes the stranger's money, clothes, and ID and then drives off in his expensive car, because he knew that he would get done in by the police if he said that the stranger just died in his sleep.

After spending the night in a motel, he picks up hitchhiker, Vera, (a femme fatale), who had earlier ridden with the man who died, and she begins to ask questions and then threatens to turn him in for murdering the stranger unless he gives her all the money.

They then arrive in Hollywood, and they rent an apartment, while trying to sell the car for extra cash, the read a newspaper and found out that the stranger was about to collect a large inheritance of the family. Vera demands that Al impersonate the stranger, but Al balks at this notion. When the two get drunk in the apartment and begin arguing, a snubbed Vera takes Al up on his earlier dare to call the police, whereupon Al accidentally strangles her with a telephone cord while pulling it to stop Vera from calling the police.

Al starts hitchhiking east again, and is waiting for the police to pick him up ad take him in. And it finishes with him getting picked up by the police, but was it a dream or reality?