You only need one.

Ann Savage in DETOUR

At one point during their book-length conversation, Peter Bogdanovich, unthinkingly, said to Orson Welles, “I love Garbo, but it’s a shame she did only one really great movie.” There was a pause. Orson, who knew a little something about the perception of having done “only one really great movie”, just looked at Bogdanovich and finally said, “You only need one.” 

I think about “You only need one” all the time.

Ann Savage’s career spanned half of the twentieth century and ended in the first decade of the twenty-first. She can be seen next to Joel McCrea at the bar in The More the Merrier, her energy insistent and blatant, symbolic of the tilted female-to-male ratio in Washington D.C. during the war era. That was the purpose of her wordless role, and she makes an impression. Her credits don’t number the hundreds and there’s a good thirty years when she didn’t work at all, but there are enough performances to get a handle on who she was as an actress, and the strengths she brought to any given project. Savage made her film debut in 1942. Her final role was in Guy Maddin’s award-winning 2007 film My Winnipeg. She died in 2008.

When you talk about Ann Savage, though, you talk about one thing and one thing only. You talk about Vera. You talk about Detour.

Ann Savage will be remembered forever and for all time for her performance as Vera in Detour, a bare-bones, hard-scrabble noir, one of the most pitiless in the genre.

As Orson said, “You only need one.”

It’s important to put these things into context, the best we can, with whatever information we have available to us. Sometimes a performance like Vera “comes from out of nowhere”, sometimes a great performance is a fluke, never to be repeated, a result of the spontaneous moment and circumstance. But once you learn a little bit about Ann Savage and her background, it becomes instantly apparent that Vera is no “fluke”. Savage was ready for Vera when Vera arrived.

I read Kent Adamson’s book Savage Detours: The Life and Work of Ann Savage with great interest. Adamson knew Ann Savage personally, and so had access to details other writers might not. I saw Detour in high school, around the same time I read East of Eden for the first time. In one of those weird neurological tricks I always find so fascinating, my mind looped together Vera and Cathy, or at least that’s how I remember it. I still associate the two characters. I didn’t question how Ann Savage gave the performance she did. I had no idea who she was. I was just flattened by the power and authority of her performance. Years later, I read Kent’s book. (Full disclosure: Kent is a pal of mine.) It is filled with revelations about Savage’s process as an actress, and there were all kinds of “aha” moments for me, reading. Since my background is acting, since I got my start in the world of theatre and acting training, learning about actors’ different processes has always been really important. It’s how the whole thing got started. I saw James Dean in East of Eden when I was 12 or 13, and set out to understand how he did what he did. That was the start.

Vera didn’t drop down from the sky. Savage didn’t just “happen” to give the performance she did. Giving a performance of this quality comes out of preparation: not just preparing to play the role, but preparing yourself as an actor, period. This is what training is about. It’s going to the gym for an actor. It’s keeping your instrument ready for the moment it will be needed. You might be paying the rent with commercials or voiceovers, but you’re training yourself for the stuff that counts.

This is what I learned about Ann Savage in Kent’s book. She was a lifelong student of the craft of acting. She worked on herself as an actress whether she had a job or not. She did lots of B-pictures (and she usually stands out), but the material was not often up to her natural gifts. She wasn’t often challenged. She studied with the legendary Max Reinhardt, and used the techniques she learned from him all her life. She was a shameless devoted people-watcher. She watched with a purpose. What is going on with that woman over there? What’s her apartment like? What is she like when she is by herself? Savage would “rehearse” at home, trying out voices and characters and walks. Savage wasn’t “on the clock” when she was doing all this. She didn’t wait for an actual job to work on her acting. She was always “in process”. I would propose this is why she always makes an impression, even in small roles, even in inferior projects. She didn’t waste her time. Working on her craft, with Reinhardt, or alone, kept her instincts sharp: sharp instincts may exist naturally, but to be able to call on them consciously takes practice. Savage paid close attention to other actors, and while she didn’t try to mimic them, she knew she should steal whenever she could. She loved Carole Lombard’s laugh. It was infectious and brilliant. Maybe there was something there Savage could explore for herself. Savage was obsessed with Barbara Stanwyck, and so she watched Stanwyck and learned. You might as well learn from the best. Savage said practicing her craft kept her “sane in a crazy world”. 

When you learn a little bit more about her, you realize Detour did not “come out of nowhere”. It’s often seen as somewhat of an “anomaly” in her career. The one great role in a mostly undistinguished lineup. The Peter Bogdanovich framing. But it wasn’t an anomaly at all. Vera was not a happy accident. This is not to say “happy accidents” don’t exist. They do. Sometimes actors shine in a singular role, because the role releases something in them, or the role is so totally close to them, and the director has created the right vibe for the actor to let loose. But it cannot be repeated: the actor only has the one performance “in them”. They don’t have the training or imagination to transfer this gift to another context. But Savage in Detour is a different story. She was smart enough, canny enough, to read the Detour script and know instantly that a goldmine had dropped in her lap. She knew what she could do with the part. She knew parts like Vera don’t come along every day. It was not a high-profile project, it barely had a budget, there was no prestige attached to it at all. But A-list, B-movie, star-vehicle, hot property, none of this hierarchy-based categorization matters. Or it shouldn’t.

Savage was not an amateur when Detour came along (1945). She had years of experience, but more important than her experience was her attitude towards her own profession. She loved it. She considered it a vocation and an artform. She loved it whether she was doing it on a sound-stage or practicing at home in front of a mirror. This kind of dedication is rare, especially in a career like acting where you are congratulated for how famous you are, you are remembered because you were in “big projects” with A-list co-stars, you were nominated for Oscars, etc. Where even someone like Greta Garbo could be boiled down to having done “only one really great movie”.

When we first see Ann Savage in Detour, she stands at the side of a dusty road, her thumb out. A suitcase sits beside her in the dust. She is not dressed as a femme fatale. She wears a fuzzy sweater, a black skirt, sensible shoes. Her hair is a mess. (Years later, Savage told the story that the hair dresser gave her a beautiful hairdo which was nixed by director Edgar G. Ulmer: “I want her to look like she has been sleeping on freight trains for the last week.”)

Al (Tom Neal), who has been having a hellish time of it himself out on those dusty roads, pulls over and offers her a ride. Before she walks over to his car, she thinks for a moment. It is apparent later why she needs to think. She recognizes the car. Then, she makes her decision, and when she does, she fixes the bottom of her sweater. Straightening it out. Pulling it down a little bit. As though that one small twitch could fix everything else wrong about her appearance. It’s a strangely vulnerable little gesture. She still has pride. Let me just adjust my sweater, because I’ve been sleeping in it for weeks now. Your heart goes out to her. But briefly. Because as she walks to the car, something else emerges on her face. When you see her closer, you perceive the dark circles under her eyes, and the expression on her face is unsmiling, unsociable. She looks ferocious, frankly, in her short walk to the car.

She’s suddenly very alarming.

You think to yourself, “You know what, Al? Leave that dame in the dust. Whatever it is, it won’t be worth it.” 

It’s not. 

Savage conveys so much without a single line of dialogue. It’s all there in the desperate and almost pissed way she jerks her sweater down to straighten herself out, and it’s all there in the look in her eyes as she strolls towards the car. Red flag, red flag.

Detour was shot on the proverbial shoestring, and while it wasn’t completed in six days (according to popular legend), the shoot wasn’t a lengthy drawn-out process either. They got in, and got out. Very efficient use of time. Detour made a huge profit because of these factors. With a screenplay based on Martin Goldsmith’s 1939 novel, Detour paired Savage with the wonderful Tom Neal as Al, a dupe of a guy sucked into Vera’s grubby malicious web. They are dynamite onscreen together.

Vera is an acute and sensitive psychological portrait of a monster. Film noir, in general, doesn’t care about the reasons. Monsters are monsters. Our nightmares are real. There are humans who stroll into our lives on a course of destruction, people who perceive others only in terms of how they can be used. Vera, as played by Ann Savage, is so compelling you find yourself on her side, and this makes you complicit in the horror to follow. Her behavior is often unforgivable and ruthless, but you can see the hard knocks of her life all over her face. What must this woman have gone through to end up like this? My God, what this woman must have seen and endured.

Very early on, maybe even from her slow walk over to Al’s car, you get the sense you are in the presence of a predator, an animal whose only concern is to survive. We don’t blame a black widow spider for biting the ankle of a golfer unfortunate enough to step on it. The black widow spider is just doing what it is supposed to do. You cannot blame an animal for trying to survive. 

Savage gives an unforgettable portrayal of survival in Detour. She is, often, quite frightening in it. She doesn’t over-play or push, she knew she didn’t need to do too much to get Vera across, not with a script as solid as this one. I must point out that “not doing too much” requires skill and technique. Critics often over-praise performances where the skill is shown, where the hard work is evident. Maybe because they don’t understand acting, and how difficult it is - the most difficult - to resist the urge to do too much. Most actors are guilty of this sin: trying to explain, over-explain, plead for sympathy, throwing glances at us to make sure we get it. Savage is beyond all that. Vera doesn’t need to explain herself, and so Savage resists the urge. This isn’t an accident. Savage did this on purpose.

Ann Savage’s eyes in Detour are the eyes of a predator caught in a trap. She is a sister-in-spirit to the monstrous Cathy from East of Eden. She operates from panic- panic at being revealed, panic at being caught - but her eyes never panic. Her eyes remain chilly and frozen. You don’t want those eyes turning on you. It would be like what happens to the animals who stare directly at the cobra’s hood in Rikki Tikki Tavi. You would freeze. Vera’s logic is criminal and impeccable. She thinks of everything. No one is a match for her: not the guy who tried to rough her up a couple of miles back: she left him with scratches on his hand as though he had a run-in with a wild animal. And certainly a down-on-his-luck piano player like Al, hitchhiking across the country to get to his girl in Hollywood, is no match for Vera. She is completely beyond him. She easily takes charge. She reads him like a book. Al never gets his bearings with her. You can see him stare at her, almost with fear, realizing - too late - he’s trapped.

I want to talk a little bit about style. Different genres require different styles. Kitchen-sink realism is far too limited. It can’t adapt to every style. Here, in Detour, Ann Savage gives a master-class on a particular style of acting, a style which is now nearly a lost art. “Style” is often seen - by people who don’t know what they’re talking about - as artificial or put-on. Any actor who’s done any training knows Moliere requires one thing and Odets another. You’re not going to approach a French farce the same way you would Arthur Miller. Style is important. Good actors inhabit style naturally and make it feel inevitable. You don’t “notice” style when it’s done well. Film noir is minimalist, coiled, tight, creating an airtight container for all the passion and paranoia and guilt. It is a highly psychological style of acting, and it makes demands on an actor’s instrument, depending on the role and the context. if you watch Ann Savage in Detour, pay close attention to what she’s doing technically, with her voice, eyes and body. It’s hard to do, because her work seems so natural, so perfect, but even more reason to pay close attention to the details.

Here are some of the technical details I’ve noticed in Savage’s performance:

— Keep the voice low and tough. Betray nothing in your voice.

— Talk fast, never stop for breath. Power through.

— Don’t over-complicate what you’re doing with your eyes. As much as humanly possible, keep the eyes still. 

— She hisses her lines. She bites off the ends of words deliberately.

— Exaggerate the contrast: Intense focused eyes with rat-a-tat speech pattern.

Every single thing she does in Detour - every gesture, every glance - is designed to intimidate and dominate. Her energy is so explosive it seems like it would have to come out more, it would need to express itself in gesture, in vocal histrionics. But Savage keeps a lid on it. Just for shits and giggles, try it: Keep your eyes totally still, and frozen, and rattle off lines at breakneck speed. Keep both things in operation at full bore, simultaneously. This is harder than it looks! It’s educational to watch Savage pull it off. This. This is how it’s done.

Pay close attention to the drunk scene. When Vera gets drunk, she really gets drunk. This is yet another connection to Cathy in East of Eden, a ferocious tough customer, a psychopath really (born, not made), but she has a weakness. Alcohol obliterates Cathy’s self-control. She cannot afford to indulge even just a little. It’s way too revealing. Vera loosens up when she “gets tight”, and a floozy nagging harridan bursts out of her grubby demeanor. Under the influence, all of Vera’s coiled tight intensity explodes chaotically. She’s ugly with Al, she knows the buttons to push. Her voice drips with contempt.

Savage’s work ethic was excellent. She cared about what she was doing and she worked hard. A deep dive into her career is well worth it. But without Detour, it would be hard to perceive her actual potential, since it was never given enough space to express itself as fully. Without Detour, our knowledge of her capabilities would be incomplete.

You only need one.

There are a lot of dangerous violent people out there. Al has already seen a lot during his time hitchhiking and he talks in voiceover about the nervewracking moment when he first gets in a stranger’s car. Do you make conversation, small talk? How do you gauge if the person is sane, or if he will crack you over the head?

In all of Al’s stories, the “he” is assumed. Danger is assumed to be a “he”.

But the most dangerous thing on the dusty road between Arizona and Los Angeles is a diminutive woman wearing a fuzzy sweater and grubby blocky shoes. Her hissing sharp voice takes no prisoners. When she cuts to the chase and speaks her mind, it is like a bright light shining into the eyes of a prisoner in a locked interrogation room.

The first thing Al says to her, leaning out of his car towards her, is “How far you goin’?”

She retorts, “How far YOU goin’?” 

Vera is going all the way. You can’t ask a wild animal to behave in opposition to its own nature. You can try to tame said animal, I suppose.

Good luck.