Vera
Wednesday night, Sleep capriciously refused to abscond with my conscious thought to the land of peaceful dreams. I rose from that bed of unrelenting wakefulness, and reserved tickets for a special event; I also added some hotel reservations. Sleep still maintained her discrete distance. What choice did I have? I turned to film noir. Detour - Edward G. Ulmer 1945 - staring Tom Neal and Ann Savage. Neal plays a man who is hitchhiking across the country to see his sweetheart; he finds misery packaged in a pale sweater and a dark skirt. (That's misery in the skirt, not Neal's character). Tom Neal makes a sympathetic character, but it's Ann Savage's performance as Vera that holds this otherwise forgettable film above of the waters of obscurity. As Vera, Ann is at her most savage. Nearly every time she opens her mouth, it's like having the jagged end of a broken bottle shoved into your guts; every phrase gives the bottle another painful twist. Vera is not just abr...