Ulmer’s 67 minute cult masterpiece, Detour is almost a textbook example of classic film noir. Al Reynolds (Tom Neal) decides to hitch a ride to Hollywood to meet up with his lady love. Some substantial obstacles threaten Al’s plans, but he manages to almost overcome them when he runs into Vera (Ann Savage), the femme fatale. As you might, that’s when things get really interesting.

Although the DVDs are made from prints of the film that are of pretty bad quality, the film itself is quite good. It’s really impressive, and the film is made even more so if you know Ulmer filmed Detour in under a week and on an extrordinarily low budget. If you’ve been curious about what film noir is, you could do a lot worse than to start with Detour.