LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ann Savage, who earned a cult following as a femme fatale in 1940s pulp-fiction movies, most notably as the ruthless villain in “Detour,” died on Dec. 27. She was 87.

Associated Press
Ann Savage in 1940.
The cause was complications of a series of strokes, said her manager, Kent Adamson.

Ms. Savage’s Hollywood career had largely been over since the mid-1950s, but in the last year she had a starring role in a film by the Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin, “My Winnipeg.”

Starting with her 1943 debut in the crime story “One Dangerous Night,” she made more than 30 films through the 1950s, including westerns (“Saddles and Sagebrush,” “Satan’s Cradle”), musicals (“Dancing in Manhattan,” “Ever Since Venus”) and wartime tales (“Passport to Suez,” “Two-Man Submarine”).

In “Detour,” her best-known film, directed by Edgar G. Ulmer in 1945, she played a woman blackmailing a stranger, played by Tom Neal.

“It’s actually a showcase role,” Mr. Adamson said. “Neal and Savage really reversed the traditional male-female roles of the time. She’s vicious and predatory. She’s been called a harpy from hell, and in the film, too, she’s very sexually aggressive, and he’s very, very passive.”

Decades later, “Detour” and Ms. Savage gained a new audience on television and video.

Mr. Adamson said Mr. Maddin had been a longtime fan of “Detour” when he cast Ms. Savage to play his mother in “My Winnipeg,” a documentary, drama and memoir about his native city.

She did some television in the 1950s, including “Death Valley Days” and “The Ford Television Theater,” then left Hollywood for New York, where she appeared in commercials.

In 1986, Ms. Savage returned to acting with an appearance in the drama “Fire With Fire.”