{"product_id":"detour-9781844572397","title":"Detour","description":"\u003cp\u003eLong considered an unpolished gem of film noir, the private treasure of film \u003cbr\u003ebuffs, cinephiles and critics, Edgar G. Ulmer's Detour (1945) has recently earned \u003cbr\u003ea new wave of recognition. In the words of film critic David Thomson, it is \u003cbr\u003esimply 'beyond remarkable.' The only B-picture to make it into the National \u003cbr\u003eFilm Registry of the Library of Congress, Detour has outrun its fate as the \u003cbr\u003ebastard child of one of Hollywood's lowliest studios. Ulmer's film follows, in \u003cbr\u003eflashback, the journey of Al Roberts (Tom Neal), a pianist hitching from New \u003cbr\u003eYork to California to join his girlfriend Sue (Claudia Drake), a singer gone to \u003cbr\u003eseek her fortune in Hollywood. In classic noir style, Detour features mysterious \u003cbr\u003edeaths, changes of identity, an unforgettable femme fatale called Vera (Ann \u003cbr\u003eSavage), and, in Roberts, a wretched, masochistic antihero. \u003cbr\u003eNoah Isenberg's study of Detour draws on a vast array of archival sources, \u003cbr\u003eunpublished letters and interviews, to provide an animated and thorough \u003cbr\u003eaccount of the film's production history, its critical reception, its afterlife \u003cbr\u003e(including various remakes) and the different ways in which the film has been \u003cbr\u003eunderstood since its release. He devotes significant attention to each of the key \u003cbr\u003eplayers in the film - the crew as well as the principal actors - while charting \u003cbr\u003ethe uneasy transformation of Martin Goldsmith's pulp novel into Ulmer's \u003cbr\u003esignature film, the disagreements between the director and writer, and the \u003cbr\u003esevere financial and formal limitations with which Ulmer grappled. The story \u003cbr\u003ethat Isenberg tells, rich in historical and critical insight, replicates the briskness \u003cbr\u003eof a B-movie.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNOAH ISENBERG is Associate Professor of University Humanities at the New School in New York City, USA. He is the author of Between Redemption and Doom: The Strains of German-Jewish Modernism (1999) and editor of Weimar Cinema: An Essential Guide to Classic Films of the Era (2008).\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"British Film Institute","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50525154214162,"sku":"9781844572397","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_632a6626-fdfe-461f-9fa9-e968a2c9f563.jpg?v=1731204729","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/detour-9781844572397","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}