MovieChat Forums > Detour (1946) Discussion > Poor script?

Poor script?

posted 12 years ago by bobby-bob
3 replies | jump to latest

Getting in trouble because you got rid of the corpse of the man that is evidently not killed, but died of some disease he had? and than not throw out from your car the only witness in the world who knows what you did, before she finds out your name or who you are? either the version i watched was somehow cut (i got the impression of very strange editing) so i missed some explanations, either the script is really bad...

Also, Ann Savage's performance (Vera) was forced and unnatural.

I do love noirs, but this one is fail.

[–] liscarkat (16621) 3 years ago

Movies like this are not meant to be documentaries teaching us the procedure to follow upon encountering a deceased person. And, as far as Ann Savage is concerned, her performance was absolutely brilliant and fascinating.

[–] Ace_Spade (9367) 3 years ago

I find a lot of people knocking movies for stuff like that (dead body disposal) are always going, "Oh, you idiot, you're going to get caught! Unbelievable! What I would have done..." and then gassing on like they'd have the wherewithal in a situation like that to act perfectly logically and reasonably. The guy's in a pouring rainstorm, low on sleep and food, desperate for cash, in the middle of nowhere, with no resources but the car and the dead man('s money). He also knows that a guy thumbing rides across the country won't get a good break from the cops. So he makes some bad decisions.

Heck, this guy forgets that Vera even points out he hasn't thought his plan all the way through. I don't need my film and TV characters to be masterminds, I just want them as clever as they are. Some of them won't act "optimally", but humans don't do that either.

[–] JohnnyJohnson (176) 3 months ago

I think it was heavily edited, hence the 69 minute run time. I was confused when Vera started calling him Roberts. I was like "WHAT? He told her his real name?!?!? Wtf?" He left all his identiying information on the side of the road with Haskell's dead body, so why would he tell this woman who has already threatened to turn him into the cops his true identity? I figured he would be dumb enough to hold onto something that would identify his true identity, but maybe they cut that scene. They certainly cut all the Sue scenes where she was actually a casting couch cum prostitute aspiring actress.