"Detour" haunts anew in its first major restoration

..and why not?
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GoogaMooga
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"Detour" haunts anew in its first major restoration

Postby GoogaMooga » 23 Dec 2018, 05:32

from bottomshelfmovies.com:

Detour (1945)

Release Date: March 19th

Synopsis: From Poverty Row came a movie that, perhaps more than any other, epitomizes the dark fatalism at the heart of film noir. As he hitchhikes his way from New York to Los Angeles, a down-on-his-luck nightclub pianist (Tom Neal) finds himself with a dead body on his hands and nowhere to run—a waking nightmare that goes from bad to worse when he picks up the most vicious femme fatale in cinema history, Ann Savage’s snarling, monstrously conniving drifter Vera. Working with no-name stars on a bargain-basement budget, B auteur Edgar G. Ulmer turned threadbare production values and seedy, low-rent atmosphere into indelible pulp poetry. Long unavailable in a format in which its hard-boiled beauty could be fully appreciated, Detour haunts anew in its first major restoration.

Detour was restored by the Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation in collaboration with the Cinémathèque Française, with funding provided by the George Lucas Family Foundation.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
Edgar G. Ulmer: The Man Off-Screen, a 2004 documentary featuring interviews with filmmakers Roger Corman, Joe Dante, and Wim Wenders and actor Ann Savage
New interview with film scholar Noah Isenberg, author of Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins
New program about the restoration of Detour
Trailer
PLUS: An essay by critic and poet Robert Polito

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Charlie O.
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Re: "Detour" haunts anew in its first major restoration

Postby Charlie O. » 23 Dec 2018, 15:02

I'll wait and see what Matt Wilson says about it.
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Matt Wilson
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Re: "Detour" haunts anew in its first major restoration

Postby Matt Wilson » 23 Dec 2018, 15:50

Oh, you know I'm all over it!

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Davey the Fat Boy
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Re: "Detour" haunts anew in its first major restoration

Postby Davey the Fat Boy » 23 Dec 2018, 17:00

One of my favorite films. I’ll be interested in seeing what the restoration process does to the visuals and the sound. The versions I’ve seen have always been kind of hazy looking and muddy sounding. But how much of that was due to the low budget? I also wonder if the meager production values have always been part of its greatness - making the whole thing feel kind of dreamlike.

That said, very happy to see that this film has finally moved into the ranks of “important” works worthy of restoration. It’s a great,great film.
“Remember I have said good things about benevolent despots before.” - Jimbo

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