A stable base: Edgar G. Ulmer at PRC (Part 4)

Much has been written about DETOUR, Edgar G. Ulmer's next production for Producers Releasing Corp., since its initial release. By then World War II was over and U.S. movies were again being exported to Europe. DETOUR was among the new releases the French moviegoing public and its critics saw, earning it an early reputation as a seminal film noir because of its closeness in spirit to French cinema's "poetic realism" that emerged in the '30s, considered by some examples of noir thinking in the years prior to the war. Indeed, the closing thoughts of DETOUR's central character, Al Roberts (Tom Neal), forever served as a direct example of the noir experience: "This I know -- at any time, fate can put the finger on you for no reason at all."

Because of all of the critiques and literature about DETOUR, there will be no attempt here to dissect its meanings beyond the contention that it is Ulmer's masterpiece for the studio, a triumph of the minimalism forced on the project by Fromkess and a wonder for what the 68-minute feature shot in a week accomplished. After receiving more generous budgets for BLUEBEARD and STRANGE ILLUSION, DETOUR had almost no resources in which to tell its story beyond strong characterization, probing camerawork and lead actors like Neal (1914-1972) and Ann Savage (1921-2008) who brought intensity to their work.

In short, DETOUR's hero Al, a cynical pianist in a New York night spot, uproots himself to join his girl Sue Harvey (Cheryl Walker) in Hollywood. Lacking cash for even a bus trip, Al hitches his way cross-country. When he's picked up by slick gambler Charles Haskell (Edmund MacDonald), he's plunged into a nightmare of entrapment. Haskell's sudden death from an apparent heart condition forces jittery Al to assume his identity and cash to avoid a police inquiry he's convinced will put the blame for Haskell's demise on him. Unknowingly picking up a road-worn Vera (Savage) -- the mysterious and violent hitcher Haskell mentions he'd given a ride to earlier -- Al's life is further complicated when his passenger recognizes the car and clothes now worn by Al as Haskell's, and then blackmails him into a shakedown scheme. Only Al remains upright at the end, but faces the shadowy existence of a fugitive.

Martin M. Goldsmith's screenplay is taken from his 1939 novel DETOUR: AN EXTRAORDINARY TALE and the adaptation lifts the movie version beyond simple melodrama to a bitter reflection of lives turned upside down by fate or some similar unknown force. While Ulmer was allowed location shooting, much of the film occurs in Haskell's Lincoln convertible against backscreen projection of desolate highway. Al's voiceover narration as he remembers everything over a cup of coffee at a roadside diner on the California-Nevada line places him and the audience squarely in the peril he encounters. The characters become more sharply defined once Vera enters the picture, but throughout all is Ulmer's brooding air of impending disaster. You know this won't end well except for the Production Code, whose edict of letting no crime go unpunished is met even if we know Al is a broken man.

Ulmer used a friend, Benjamin H. Kline, as cinematographer in place of Schufftan, providing a clean, bright look to the exteriors that offer a contrast with the foreboding air of the Los Angeles apartment Al and Vera share in the film's final portion. Restored versions of DETOUR carry a clear indication of what DETOUR looked like on its original run, as opposed to the more washed-out copies that continue to circulate in the public domain.

For what became the best role of his blighted career as a screen actor, Neal gives a distinctive and sympathetic performance that served as a model for disaffected noir heroes to come. It was certainly a change from the usual clean-cut roles he'd had as a contract player at M-G-M and RKO starting in the late '30s, although a prototypical noir role came his way at Metro in Jacques Tourneur's THEY ALL COME OUT (1939), which had begun life as one of Metro's interesting "Crime Does Not Pay" two-reelers.*

Neal had come to PRC earlier in 1945 headlining Lew Landers' CRIME INC., handling the role of a crusading crime reporter with class. But as roles became fewer -- mostly due to his tempestuous relationship with blonde bombshell Barbara Payton in the early '50s -- he left acting to focus on a sideline as a gardener and landscaper. In a bizarre parallel to Al Roberts' fate in DETOUR, he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 1965 for the shooting death of his third and final wife. Neal died of heart failure less than a year after his release from prison on parole in December 1971.

Even more memorable is Savage as Vera, one of the ultimate femmes fatale of B movie noir alongside Jean Gillie in Jack Bernhard's DECOY (1946) for Monogram and Leslie Brooks in BLONDE ICE (1948), also directed by Bernhard, this time for Film Classics. Hard-looking Savage impressively paints Vera in different shades, alternately hateful, shrill, pathetic and even seductive but most of all, destructive, her occasional cough hinting at a tubercular condition that will soon remove her from her miserable existence.

Recently of Columbia, where she appeared with Warren William in his last Lone Wolf flick, 1943's PASSPORT TO SUEZ, Savage also came to PRC in '45 as the villain of Sam Newfield's DOUBLE INDEMNITY-like APOLOGY FOR MURDER, and like Neal, found herself moored to second features for the remainder of her career. She gave up acting around the mid-'50s, but returned to California after the death of her third husband in 1969, working as a legal secretary until her retirement, only to find herself back before cameras in FIRE WITH FIRE (1986), EDGAR G. ULMER: THE MAN BEHIND THE SCREEN (2004) as herself, reminiscing about Ulmer and the making of DETOUR, and in the Canadian semi-documentary MY WINNIPEG (2007).

Often listed as a 1946 release, DETOUR was actually distributed to theaters on Nov. 30, 1945. Six weeks earlier, Monogram issued what is considered its foray into DETOUR-ish territory, SENSATION HUNTERS, helmed by veteran director Christy Cabanne. The film details the degradation of a young woman (Doris Merrick) who cannot convince herself to ditch the no-goodnik (Robert Lowery) who's the cause of her troubles. While at first blush an exploitation-themed study of what happens when an unhappy girl leaves her even grimmer household, SENSATION HUNTERS carries a DETOUR-like air of foreboding that leads to a downbeat ending, making it an interestingly dark variation from the usual Monogram offering (just as DETOUR was to PRC). The film underwent a title change to CLUB PARADISE when it was sold to television in 1949 to avoid confusion with a Monogram SENSATION HUNTERS from 1933, part of an earlier package of flicks the studio syndicated to TV when demand for movies to fill programming slots became apparent.

Anyway, it was a CLUB HAVANA that bore the Ulmer name as director when audiences first saw it on Nov. 30, 1945, the same day DETOUR appeared on screens. CLUB HAVANA had been filmed within a week in February and held up for release until later in the year, perhaps because it was thought it would play better once the war was over. Although Ulmer was apparently unhappy with JIVE JUNCTION (1943), a previous attempt at a musical, he told Bogdanovich he enjoyed making CLUB HAVANA, a mixture of Latin-themed music and scripted-on-the-spot melodrama that was inevitably dubbed the GRAND HOTEL of PRC, after the same-titled, multiple-plot Vicki Baum novel filmed as an M-G-M super-production in 1932. The Baum original (1929 novel and play in 1930) found itself twice remade in 1945 by Metro as Mervyn LeRoy's WEEKEND AT THE WALDORF and Peter Godfrey's HOTEL BERLIN for the Brothers Warner.

Set in a Miami night spot, and again lensed by Kline, CLUB HAVANA explores several personal dramas, including one in which a murder suspect (Marc Lawrence) looks to snuff the sole witness (Eric Sinclair) to the crime. As in its Baum inspiration, the issues faced by the club's patrons are observed by suave head waiter Charles (Pedro de Cordoba) and ladies' attendant/mother confessor Hetty (Gertrude Michael) as bridges to the plot threads, none of which really amount to anything but are resolved by the close of the 62-minute feature.

What's impressive is that as Ulmer again worked in restricted circumstances (but apparently had a ball doing so), Fromkess could afford a cast of some stature in Lawrence, Paul Cavanaugh, Donald Douglas, Margaret Lindsay and Ernest Truex, while Ulmer brought in such veterans of previous PRC productions as Michael, Frank Fenton and Sonia Sorel. Tom Neal returns in a basically stalwart part as a doctor who rescues a distraught Lindsay from a suicide attempt, looking about as striking in evening clothes as he did in his dusty DETOUR togs. He's also wearing the pencil-line mustache he retained from his role in CRIME INC.

CLUB HAVANA was one of the last PRC releases to bear Fromkess's name as producer; he left the studio that year to join the Samuel Goldwyn organization. Fromkess soon took on syndicated TV production, one of his first successes the RAMAR OF THE JUNGLE series of 1952-1954 in which Sigmund Neufeld and Sam Newfield fulfilled their old PRC duties as producer and director, respectively. Fromkess's Television Programs of America became adept at international co-production deals with such entities as the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (for LAST OF THE MOHICANS, 1956) and Great Britain's Independent Television Co. (THE NEW ADVENTURES OF CHARLIE CHAN, 1957, and NEW YORK CONFIDENTIAL, 1959).

Returning to filmmaking, Fromkess backed cult director Samuel Fuller's SHOCK CORRIDOR (1963) and THE NAKED KISS (1964), as well as the Racquel Welch vehicle FLAREUP (1969) and RAGE (1972) starring George C. Scott. The native New Yorker, who originally entered the movie business as a financial specialist for Columbia in 1929, was 75 when he passed in 1977.

PRC was still committed to making more movies out of the programmer range, and continued handing the classier projects to Ulmer for his adherence to speed and budget. Falling into this range was THE WIFE OF MONTE CRISTO, released April 23, 1946, an attempt at a swashbuckler that also tried to attract some name talent by starring British actor John Loder. However, Loder is the actually the villain in THE WIFE OF MONTE CRISTO, based on but not faithful to an Alexandre Dumas novel of the same title that dates back to 1864.

The count, Edmond Dantes, is played by Martin Kosleck, whom the studio borrowed from Universal. The count returns to 1830s Paris to seek vengeance on the men who condemned him to prison in the first place. He's also out to settle a score with the corrupt chief of the city's police (Loder). Incapacitated after a sword battle with Loder's flunkies, Dantes' wife Haydee (Lenore Aubert) continues the fight in mask and cloak.

Lack of availability to THE WIFE OF MONTE CRISTO prevents a closer look, although the inclusion of the nobleman makes it a point of interest for plot and Ulmer's approach to the material. Bigger in intent than in execution, Ulmer nevertheless said he liked THE WIFE OF MONTE CRISTO, whose very period detail meant PRC spent more money on the project than usual and allowed more shooting time for an 80-minute film seeking the top half in double feature situations. The cinematographer of record is Adolph Edward Kull, although Ulmer cited it as another film shot by Schufftan, with Kull serving as camera operator.

Often billed as Edward A. Kull, he was a veteran DP, operative cameraman and occasional director who survived the rigors of making the serial (and two-part feature film) THE NEW ADVENTURES OF TARZAN (1935) in Guatemala, which he filmed as director and co-cinematographer. The production resulted from Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs' dissatisfaction with the M-G-M features of the time starring Johnny Weissmuller as the Lord of the Jungle. The independent NEW ADVENTURES OF TARZAN, the first release of Burroughs-Tarzan Pictures Inc., did not fare well at the box office due to audience preference for the slickly-made Metro Tarzans, nor did Burroughs-Tarzan, which folded its tent two years later.** THE WIFE OF MONTE CRISTO was among Kull's last endeavors behind the camera; he died at 61 in December 1946.

Loder was at liberty in Hollywood at the time of the production, while Aubert added the film to her resume, although she became better known for her mad scientist role in ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948). Kosleck, reputedly shocked at the reduced production circumstances at PRC, received one of his rare heroic parts of the time; he was better known as a creepy villain in such Universal Bs as THE FROZEN GHOST, PURSUIT TO ALGIERS (both 1945) and HOUSE OF HORRORS (1946). Upon his return to Universal City, he was rewarded with an all-too-brief good guy role in SHE WOLF OF LONDON (1946).

Ulmer told Bogdanovich that before leaving PRC, Fromkess had seen the success enjoyed by independent producer Edward Small with THE SON OF MONTE CRISTO, a rousing 1940 adventure mixing elements of THE PRISONER OF ZENDA (1937) and Zorro movies that starred Louis Hayward, Joan Bennett and George Sanders under Rowland V. Lee's direction. Because Small had gotten rich with the film and "in fact, with all the family of Monte Cristo ... He (Fromkess) said he wanted to make a Monte Cristo also, so we decided to make THE WIFE," Ulmer said.*** Fromkess may have been on to something there about Small's fondness for the Dantes family; before 1946 closed, Small, then in co-production with Columbia, issued THE RETURN OF MONTE CRISTO with Hayward again in the lead and Henry Levin directing.

Although the exact figure is elusive -- and given Wikipedia's contention that the studio never spent more than $100,000 on anything it made -- HER SISTER'S SECRET was reportedly the most expensive PRC film yet upon its release on Sept. 23, 1946. Producer Henry Brash obtained Ulmer as director and Franz F. "Frank" Planer, an Austrian emigre of note, as director of photography on an 86-minute top-line feature in which the money was spent on lavish set design and a better-than-usual cast of Nancy Coleman, Margaret Lindsay, Philip Reed, Regis Toomey and Felix Bressart. All of the actors brought sensitivity and skill to what was called a "weeper" back in the day, with a plot that would have kept any then-current 15-minute radio serial tied up for weeks.

At New Orleans' Mardi Gras celebration in the early days of World War II, Antoinette "Toni" Dubois (Coleman) isn't enjoying the company of longtime suitor Guy (George Meeker), causing her to catch the eye of soldier Dick Connolly (Reed). They meet and spend an idyllic night, falling in love and agreeing to marry. A pledge to meet in a week to see if their devotion isn't just a fling goes awry when Dick is shipped overseas and his letter to Toni explaining what happened is misplaced. Disillusioned, and discovering that their single night of passion has made her pregnant, Toni leaves her historian father (Henry Stephenson) in care of their wise housekeeper Mathilda (Frances E. Williams) and flees to New York, where she unburdens her troubles on older sister Renee Gordon (Lindsay).

Renee, unable to conceive herself, views Toni's pregnancy as a means of making her and husband Bill's (Toomey) lives complete. Toni agrees, gives birth to a boy at a western resort ranch while Bill serves in the Navy, and gives up the infant to Renee. She returns to New Orleans questioning her decision to allow Renee the baby. After three years and the death of her dad, Toni's mother urge overcomes her and she returns to New York around the time of Bill's discharge. Renee won't surrender Bill Jr. (Winston Severn), and after nearly abducting the child, Toni opts to leave -- just in time for Dick, who'd been searching for Toni since since war's end, to walk back into life, declare his love and set up the requisite happy ending for all concerned.

Gina Kaus's 1934 novel THE DARK ANGEL served as the basis for an updated screenplay by Anne Green, which along with Ulmer's direction never strays from the "women's picture" intent of the production. Ulmer does appear to have lavished time and attention on set details, resulting in a believable representation of Mardi Gras, and the warmth of subsequent scenes involving a budding romance that never feels phony thanks to the work of Coleman, late of Warner Bros., and Reed, too often wasted in smooth playboy roles. Coleman's strength as Toni is matched by the veteran Lindsay, fresh from her appearance as a divorcee in CLUB HAVANA. Winston Severn (born 1942) was a brother of child actor William "Billy" Severn (1938-1983) who played the youth lost in and befriended by the occupants of THE ENCHANTED FOREST (1945), a color production for PRC by Jack Schwarz that netted critical praise and neat box office returns.

John Loder may have suggested Ulmer to his wife Hedy Lamarr for THE STRANGE WOMAN, an independent project which the glamorous M-G-M star co-produced with Hunt Stromberg. Ulmer said Lamarr requested his services, obtaining a loanout from his PRC contract for a crack at an A-level flick with appropriate budget and production services. The film was lent some serious class by having Lamarr co-star with such male talent as George Sanders, Louis Hayward and Gene Lockhart. They portray the men in the life of a poor girl (Lamarr) in early 19th Century Maine who marries into wealth and subsequently ruins her stuffed-shirt husband (Lockhart) and his neurotic son (Hayward) while craving the company of a more upstanding individual (Sanders in a turnabout from his usual rotter parts).

Released by United Artists on Oct. 25, 1946, this costume noir was adapted from a same-titled 1941 novel by Ben Ames Williams, whose name meant something to fans of a later work, LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN, turned into a Technicolor success by Twentieth Century-Fox in 1945 with Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde and Vincent Price as the leads. Thematically the same as LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN, in which a possessive woman (Tierney) brings misfortune to her husband (Wilde) and sister (Jeanne Crain), THE STRANGE WOMAN offered enough darkness for Ulmer to explore against the background of a rough lumber town that Lamarr's character seeks to dominate, along with some psychological foundation for her greedy nature. THE STRANGE WOMAN was a major departure for Ulmer after the hearts and flowers of HER SISTER'S SECRET, which became the director's last job for PRC.

Ulmer was then hired to helm two distinctively different and higher-toned pictures, the two hour-plus CARNEGIE HALL (1947) for UA in which his love for classical musical was more than indulged, and RUTHLESS (1948) for Eagle-Lion Films, which absorbed PRC the year after Ulmer's departure. RUTHLESS, again carrying significant acting talent from such stalwarts as Hayward, Zachary Scott, Diana Lynn and Sydney Greenstreet, has been often compared to CITIZEN KANE (1941), although not always charitably. When Ulmer agreed to work on the Italian-made PIRATES OF CAPRI (1949), the move marked the remainder of his career working both overseas and in Hollywood on often financially-challenged circumstances; his last film, 1964's THE CAVERN, was also a return to Italy. Unlike some of his fellow directors at PRC like Sam Newfield and Lew Landers who prolonged their careers doing episodic television, Ulmer stayed away to maintain the independence he enjoyed.

Most of the work bearing the name of Edgar G. Ulmer that came from PRC was forgettable to some or beneath him, with the exceptions of such standout efforts as BLUEBEARD, STRANGE ILLUSION and DETOUR, which unfortunately carried traces of coming from a shoestring movie company. All of that and other carping about Ulmer aside, he came to PRC as a qualified filmmaker whose experience in THE BLACK CAT and in low-budget ethnic movies made him well-versed in the techniques favored by PRC and its unit producers for getting a film made quickly to meet exhibitor demand for product. That plus his talent made his tenure with PRC secure, even after a sympathetic producer such as Leon Fromkess had gone on to other things. Had Ulmer not taken THE STRANGE WOMAN assignment and remained at PRC, he probably would have been left to his own devices given PRC's disappearing into Eagle-Lion in 1947; Ulmer even mentioned that after the war he was looking to get out of PRC and a obtain chance to work on a more high-profile project like THE STRANGE WOMAN. But it's intriguing to speculate on what Ulmer would have achieved had he gone full-time with Eagle-Lion, a specialist in noir, as his atmospheric work on RUTHLESS suggests.

Brian Aherne, one of THE CAVERN's co-stars, found Ulmer "a rather florid, temperamental character who had plenty of experience and some talent but so far not much success." Yet, working in uncomfortable conditions and once more with little money, Ulmer and his wife Shirley, who fulfilled many duties during the production, "plunged into their tasks and scarcely slept for many weeks" in order to get the movie made, the actor recalled.@ It spoke to the director's commitment to getting the job done and as cinematically conceived as possible.

Ulmer would enjoy some success and some lean times in the years following his departure from PRC, but what PRC provided to him in the '40s was a stable base to sharpen his directorial skills. The films he made for PRC are proof that Ulmer was ready, as ever, to take on bigger movies. And, as he put it, having served penance for such breaks for all of the compromises he made between commercialism and screen art at PRC and later in his career.
-- Kevin Kelly, July 28, 2017.

* Chris Fujiwara, JACQUES TOURNEUR: THE CINEMA OF NIGHTFALL, Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998, p. 60. Neal contributed another noirish portrayal as a cold killer in Wallace Fox's BOWERY AT MIDNIGHT (1942), a Bela Lugosi vehicle for Monogram.
** George E. Turner and Michael H. Price, FORGOTTEN HORRORS: THE DEFINITIVE EDITION, Baltimore, Md.: Midnight Marquee Press, 1999, p. 242.
*** Peter Bogdanovich, "Interviews: Edgar G. Ulmer," in Todd McCarthy and Charles Flynn, KINGS OF THE Bs: WORRKING WITHIN THE HOLLYWOOD SYSTEM, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1975, p. 404.
@ Brian Aherne (with the assistance of George Sanders and Benita Hume), A DREADFUL MAN, New York: Berkley Books, 1981, pp. 153-154.