Out In The High White Note Night- Ann Savage’s Detour

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

DVD

Detour, starring Tom Neal, Ann Savage, PRC, 1945

A lot of guys, musical guys anyway, are always trying to reach that high white note, that elusive note that says they have made it, have met god and his graces, in their chosen profession. A few guys, guys like the Duke, Benny, Lionel, Charlie, Miles reached it, reached it at great expense but reached it, other guys though fall down, don’t make it. Maybe it is lack of talent, perseverance, wit, or just plain old circumstances, bad luck or a wrong move but they fall down, fall down hard. Take Al Roberts (Tom Neal), the guy who is the guy in the wrong place at the wrong time in this gritty, cinematically interesting black and white beauty of a B-film noir under review, Detour. He had his dreams; he had his chance to take the brass ring but some stuff, some serious stuff, got in the way so we will never know whether he had the stuff to hit that big note floating out into the film noir night.

Yah, no question, Al Robert’s was born under an unlucky star or something. Here was a guy with all kinds of talent, including some classical piano training playing for dimes and donuts to make ends meet at some back street supper clubs in New Jack City. On an lucky night he might caught a five or ten from some drunken party hungry to hear his sentimental journey stuff, stuff strictly meant for the tourist trade. The only bright spot was that his honey, a white night torch singer, was strictly first-rate and they, if they could ever rub two dimes together were going to get married. Oh yah, and as if to mock him, after that song bird made it big in Hollywood where she was headed to make herself a star before they got around to tying the knot.

Well you know the old Hollywood fame song by now. Al was lonely in New Jack City and song bird went crashing down, serving them off the arm in some hash house in Santa Monica and so Al, penniless Al, decided to hitchhike out to share his honey’s fate. That search for the high white note be damned, be detoured. And although the road cross-country was nothing but a lot of short haul rides and lonely waits at miserable back road cross roads in place like Neola, Iowa and Lawrence, Kansas he finally got a break, a guy, Haskell, a guy who was a step up in class with a big old convertible, maybe a Packard stopped and picked him up and said he was heading for the coast. Yes sir, a big break finally. Except that big break turned into an Al nightmare when the apparently sickly Haskell hauled off and died leaving Al holding the bag. Who, after all, was going to believe a fairly young guy with dough didn’t meet with anything but foul play from a penniless tramp.

And in a way Al was right in his thinking. But he got a little cloudy in his thinking, a little confused, no, a lot confused. See Al came up with the bright idea that he would change identities with the deceased Haskell and abandon the car in L.A. on his way to his honey. Not the best idea, really, but an idea. Except Al made one fatal move, not intentionally, but just as fatal nevertheless. He picked her up. Her being a wayward and mouthy femme fatalenamed Vera (Ann Savage) who, down or her uppers, was hitching the roads west.

But here is where Al really was born under an unlucky star. She, having hitched a ride earlier with the deceased Haskell and having had to fend him off, knew that Al did not own the car. Vera, nothing but a flat-out gold-digger and hustler, started squawking about her cut, or else. So she has them act as a married couple in order to bamboozle Haskell’s estranged rich dying father into believing Al was his long lost son. Al finally balked at that and Vera threatened to call copper on him for Haskell’s death. He tried to stop her once she was in a drunken rage by attempting to pull the telephone cord through the closed bedroom door on her. All he did though was strangle her accidently when she got caught up in the cord. Yah, but who was going to believe a tramp, a two- bit guy didn’t have murder and mayhem in his heart not once but twice. So yah, he never did get to see his song bird. And worse, Al never got to reach for that high white night blowing our hard from some beachfront club with the Japan Current in the Pacific Coast night.