MovieChat Forums > Detour (1946) Discussion > Weird 14 minute mark

Weird 14 minute mark

posted 9 years ago by TragicBloom
3 replies | jump to latest

Around 14 minutes in, it shows him getting into a truck using what would normally be a drivers side door. Then they transition into him hitching with 2 other cars where the driver is sitting on the right side of the vehicle. And finally around the 15 min mark they show a close up of his face while 2 black cars pass each other in the background; the cars appear to be driving on the left side of the street.

Its really strange because for the rest of the movie everything is normal. It has me wondering whether America in '45 was a lot more different than I had imagined, or if there is some other explanation. Anyone know?

[–] Robbmonster 8 years ago

The explanation is one of simple practicality.

Detour was a low budget film, and in some shots, the car seemed to be going the 'wrong', ie, left to right to depict New York to Los Angeles, when general film convention dictated - and still does - that you would show right to left for such a trip.

Since there wasn't enough money for reshoots, the decision was made in editing to simply flip the film negative back to front, effectively reversing everything, and meaning the car would be driving on the left side of the road, with the driver sitting on the right side of the car.

Essentially, the decision was made to choose storytelling clarity of continuity.

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[–] TragicBloom 8 years ago

Wow that's a foolish decision. To think they'd prefer drivers on the right side of the car, and cars driving down the left side of the street rather than the trip from NY to LA being a left to right affair.

I mean NY to LA obviously can be left to right depending on which side of the car you're filming from. I think the audience would've been able to keep up with that notion lol ... heck it probably wouldn't have even registered in the mind.

Yet they think no one will notice American traffic behaving like Europe?

[–] Robbmonster 8 years ago

It's just a filmic convention. Travelling east to west, you go right to left, travelling west to east is left to right. It reflects compass points and the way maps are drawn.

The same also applied to any kind of journey. Convention says when you leave, you go right to left, and when you return it's left to right. It's part of filmic language, and were it to be done differently, the audience would be haunted by a feeling of it being 'not quite right'.

It's not so much that they thought no one would notice, it was more that they had a decision to make, and decided to go for storytelling clarity rather than perfect continuity.

I doubt it was a decision that was made lightly.

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