event details

Detour (1945) & Blood Simple (1984)

Friday, May 2, 7:00 pm

Hamilton Building, Lower Level

American film noir has been a bright source of inspiration for scores of contemporary filmmakers, though none as stylish as the fraternal duo of Joel and Ethan Coen. Starting with their sensational debut Blood Simple, they typically collaborate on their scripts while nominally dividing the directing (Joel) and producing (Ethan). Drawn from noir and filtered through a wryly modernist lens, Blood Simple is anything but simple in its serpentine story of deceit, double-cross, and dumb bad luck deep in the heart of Texas. In the case of a murderous husband (Dan Hedaya), his wife (Frances McDormand), her lover (John Getz), and a crooked private eye (M. Emmet Walsh), everyone takes a turn as fortune’s fool.

Had the Coens’ film appeared in 1945, it might have been paired with Ulmer’s legendary B noir, Detour, which features one of the genre’s quintessential male victims, as well as its most outré femme fatale. In acidic flashbacks, a penniless piano player (Tom Neal) narrates how a simple cross-country hitchhiking trip sent his life spinning out of control and into the clutches of a twisted pick-up (Ann Savage). Rated R.

Detour (1945) directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, 67 min., B & W. Blood Simple (1984) directed by Joel Coen, 96 min., color.

Show begins at 7 pm, seating at 6:30 pm.

Tickets

$8 DAM members, senior citizens, students with ID; $9 others (double feature pricing)

Series Tickets

Order a series ticket to attend all eight films in our spring series, Take Two: Film and Its Inspirations.

A service charge of $1 per ticket will be added to online orders. To order by phone, call 1-866-942-ARTS from 9 am to 5 pm daily. A service charge of $3 per ticket, plus an optional $3.50 delivery charge, will be added to phone orders. To avoid service charges, buy your tickets on-site during regular museum hours.