The Devil Thumbs a Ride

Laurence Tierney seems to have been born to play this role. He is sinister, amoral, nasty. It's beautifully filmed and superbly directed, though it has a raw feel.

Tiernry is the title character. A devil he surely is. He gets the poor dope who picks him up a very hard time. The two women they then give rides to fare even less well.

Betty Lawford is perfect as the tough, over-the-hill floozy of those two. She is always looking for a deal for herself -- silk stockings, salvation... We like her, though, and feel that we may have encountered her or her like behind countless counters.

We feel bad for the gas station attendant when Tierney says cruel things about the picture of his young daughter. There is no doubt: Tierney's character is a dreadful person. But the gas station attendant is a pain himself. He's an annoying know-it-all.

The police are not portrayed in a very favorable light, either. So who do we actually like? Maybe the younger of the two hitchhikers, Beulah. Her older pal, though we surely do not admire her. The watchman Tierney cruelly gets drunk? Not really.

It's a slice of life cut with a hatchet and the slice is not pretty no matter what angle we look at it from.

With a title like that, incredible plugs from several film noir historians and the presence of Lawrence Tierney, I just had to find this movie and buy it, even if it was sight-unseen and hard to obtain.

This had a "Detour" look to it, meaning a very low-budget film noir with a no- name cast except for Tierney, although he wasn't a big star anyway. I knew him from the film "Born To Kill" and was intriguing. Tierney played the same kind of psycho here. He was convincing, since he was mean and tough and nasty in real life, too.

In this film, four people dominate: one good man, one bad man, one good woman, one bad woman. The bad people, of course, have the best lines. You know Tierney is not good because insults everyone he sees, even a little baby. The other people are idiotic and you want slap them and say, "Wake up!" before Tierney does something bad to them.

The cops in here are also a bit strange. They would rather play poker than go chase a criminal. On second thought, maybe that was sensible. Anyway, it was odd to see.

In a nutshell, Tierney is on the run, and winds up with these other saps who he cons into hiding out in someone's vacant house. Most of the film is talk, not much action, but it moves pretty well and it only lasts 62 minutes. There are laughs along the way despite the seriousness of the story but it still was disappointing overall. I guess I expected too much. The title is still the best thing about the film. See it, if you can, but don't spend money on it as I did.

Ironic, given that TCM's print of "Detour" looks and sounds so awful it borders on unwatchable, this little film plays with crystal clear sound and a perfect picture.

While "Devil" does not really approach the genius of "Detour", it is a very engaging story and a fun hour of film. The hitch-hiker is disturbingly without conscience, and his ability to manipulate the actions of both the driver and the other passengers display a rather keen understanding of the sociopathic personality. Just how different life was in the 1940's is immediately made clear by those two dames that get picked up early in the film (this is so unlikely in 21st America that no self-respecting film-maker would ask you to believe it).

The pace is taunt, which I like, and there are a few real surprises along the way. Our story is marred only (and BADLY) by a very stupid slapped on ending that may have gotten a chuckle out of contemporary audiences, but will surely illicit only groans from the modern viewer. Still worthwhile, enjoy the ride and don't pick up any strangers!

Lawrence Tierney singlehandedly lifts this poverty row cheapie from lowbrow crime melodrama anonymity to the upper pantheon of low budget noir exploitation immortality. Bears some resemblance to other low budget limited set piece claustrophobic pics like THE DESPERATE HOURS or PETRIFIED FOREST, but don't dwell on that. There are a lot of strangled laughs given the tense set-up, but don't dwell on that, either. Ignore the implausibilities and wildly uneven acting and revel instead in young Tierney's charismatic menace and casual sadism. He so dominates the proceedings that any analysis of plot points (fairly lacking) or cinematography (surprisingly good) or direction (not so hot) really pales in comparison. One of those rare films that has such bad performances that it is an instant classic yet also featuring such a standout performance from Tierney that it is also an instant classic. Trust me on this one, brother... don't miss this obscure but vital piece of 50s Americrimedramacana. You will be amused and amazed, horrified and entertained, but most of all... you will not soon forget the experience.

Over the decades, Felix Feist's The Devil Thumbs A Ride has gathered a fierce reputation as some sort of ultimate, quick-and-dirty film noir (like Detour). It's not quite that. Its dark star, Laurence Tierney, was more explosively, unpredictably violent in Born to Kill (and he had Claire Trevor at her malevolent best to play against). And Ida Lupino's The Hitch-Hiker corners the market on the terrors of the lonely road, come nightfall. (The better part of Devil Thumbs A Ride, by contrast, occur in a posh beach house somewhere between San Diego and Los Angeles). But the ensemble cast works well together -- Betty Lawford as good-time-gal Agnes is especially memorable. The end is somewhat troublesome; the necessary "restoration to normalcy" is abrupt and discordantly upbeat. The best films noirs close on a greyer, more ambiguous note. Still, this may be the finest 63-minute film ever made, and a key piece in the noir cycle.