Posts
| The Hitch-Hiker | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Ida Lupino |
| Produced by | Collier Young |
| Screenplay by |
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| Starring | |
| Music by | Leith Stevens |
| Cinematography | Nicholas Musuraca |
| Edited by | Douglas Stewart |
Production
company | |
| Distributed by | RKO Radio Pictures |
Release dates
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Running time
| 71 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Hitch-Hiker
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For similarly-named films, see Hitchhiking (disambiguation).
The Hitch-Hiker is a 1953 film noir, directed by Ida Lupino, about two fishing buddies who pick up a mysterioushitchhiker during a trip to Mexico.[2]
The movie was written by Robert L. Joseph, Lupino, and her husbandCollier Young, based on a story by blacklisted Out of the Past screenwriterDaniel Mainwaring (who did not receive screen credit). The film is based on the true story of psychopathic murderer Billy Cook.
It is regarded as the first American mainstream film noir directed by a woman. The director of photographywas RKO Pictures regular Nicholas Musuraca.[3]
In 1998, The Hitch-Hiker was selected for preservation in the United StatesNational Film Registry as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant."
Plot[edit]
Two men (Edmond O'Brien and Frank Lovejoy) from El Centro, California are driving toward a planned fishing trip at the Mexican town of San Felipe on the Gulf of California. Just south of Mexicali, they pick up a hitchhiker named Emmett Myers (William Talman), whose stolen car has apparently run out of gas. Myers turns out to be a psychopath who has committed multiple murders while hitch-hiking betweenIllinois and Southern California, and has managed to slip into Mexico at Mexicali. In order to evade the pursuing authorities, Myers forces the two men at gunpoint to journey deep into the heart of the Baja California Peninsula, toward the town of Santa Rosalía, where he plans to take a ferry across the Gulf of California.
The film ends with the weary friends agreeing to give statements to police.
Cast[edit]
- Edmond O'Brien as Roy Collins
- Frank Lovejoy as Gilbert Bowen
- William Talman as Emmett Myers
- José Torvay as Captain Alvarado
- Wendell Niles as Himself
- Jean Del Val as Inspector General
- Clark Howat as Government Agent
- Natividad Vacío as Jose
- Rodney Bell as William Johnson
Collier Young, the ex-husband of director Ida Lupino and the co-writer of the screenplay, makes an uncredited appearance in the film as a Mexican peasant.
Production[edit]
The Hitch-Hiker went into production on June 24, 1952 and wrapped in late July.[5]Location shooting took place in the Alabama Hills near Lone Pine[6] and Big Pine, California.[7] Working titles for the film were "The Difference" and "The Persuader".[5]
Director Ida Lupino was a noted actress[8] who began directing when Elmer Clifton got sick and couldn't finish the film he was directing for Filmakers Inc., the company started by Lupino and her husband Collier Young to make low-budget, issue-oriented movies. Lupino stepped in to finish the film and went on to direct her own projects. The Hitch-Hiker was her first hard-paced, fast-moving picture after four "women's" films about social issues.[citation needed]
Lupino interviewed the two prospectors whom Billy Cook had held hostage, and got releases from them and from Cook as well, so that she could integrate parts of Cook's life into the script. To appease the censors at the Hays Office, however, she reduced the number of deaths to three.[4] The Hitch-Hiker premiered in Boston on March 20, 1953 and immediately went into general release.[5] The film was marketed with the tagline: "When was the last time you invited death into your car?"Krewson, John. Onion A.V. Club, DVD review, March 29, 2002. Last accessed: April 23, 2008
Critical response[edit]
A.H. Weiler, the film critic for the New York Times, gave The Hitch-Hiker a mixed review on its initial release. The acting, direction, and use of locations were praised, but the plot was deemed to be predictable.[9]
Critic John Krewson lauded the work of Ida Lupino, and wrote, "As a screenwriter and director, Lupino had an eye for the emotional truth hidden within the taboo or mundane, making a series of B-styled pictures which featured sympathetic, honest portrayals of such controversial subjects as unmarried mothers, bigamy, and rape...in The Hitch-Hiker, arguably Lupino's best film and the only true noir directed by a woman, two utterly average middle-class American men are held at gunpoint and slowly psychologically broken by a serial killer. In addition to her critical but compassionate sensibility, Lupino had a great filmmaker's eye, using the starkly beautiful street scenes in Not Wanted and the gorgeous, ever-present loneliness of empty highways in The Hitch-Hiker to set her characters apart.[10]Time Out Film Guide wrote of the film, "Absolutely assured in her creation of the bleak, noir atmosphere – whether in the claustrophobic confines of the car, or lost in the arid expanses of the desert – Lupino never relaxes the tension for one moment. Yet her emotional sensitivity is also upfront: charting the changes in the menaced men's relationship as they bicker about how to deal with their captor, stressing that only through friendship can they survive. Taut, tough, and entirely without macho-glorification, it's a gem, with first-class performances from its three protagonists, deftly characterised without resort to cliché."[11]
