The Hitch-Hiker

Infobox Film
name = The Hitch-Hiker


image_size = 215px
caption = theatrical poster
producer = Collier Young
director = Ida Lupino
writer = Story:
Daniel Mainwaring "(uncredited)"
Adaptation:
Robert L. Joseph
Screenplay:
Ida Lupino
Collier Young

starring = Edmond O'Brien
Frank Lovejoy
William Talman
music = Leith Stevens
cinematography = Nicholas Musuraca
editing = Douglas Stewart
distributor = RKO Radio Pictures
released = 29 April fy|1953
runtime = 71 minutes
country = FilmUS
language = English
budget =
gross =
imdb_id = 0045877|

"The Hitch-Hiker" (fy|1953) is a film noir directed by Ida Lupino about two hunting buddies who pick up a mysterious hitchhiker. The movie was written by Robert L. Joseph, Lupino and her husband Collier Young based on a story by "Out of the Past" screenwriter Daniel Mainwaring, who was blacklisted at the time and did not receive screen credit. The film is based on the true story of Billy Cook, a psychopathic murderer, and is considered the first film noir directed by a woman. The director of photography was RKO Pictures regular Nicholas Musuraca. [imdb title|0045877|title=The Hitch-Hiker]

In 1998, "The Hitch-Hiker" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant."

Background

In California in 1950, Billy Cook murdered a family of five and a travelling salesman, then kidnapped two prospectors and took them to Mexico to kill them &ndashl the Mexican police captured him before he could carry out his plan. He was extradited back to the United States and was tried and convicted. On December 12, 1952, Cook was executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin.Frank Miller [http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title.jsp?stid=78138&category=Articles "The Hitch-Hiker" (TCM article)] ]

Plot

Two men (Edmond O'Brien and Frank Lovejoy) on a fishing trip pick up a hitchhiker named Emmett Myers (William Talman), who turns out to be a psychopath who has committed multiple murders. Myers was abused as a child, and, as a result, hates humanity.

Cast

Production

"The Hitch-Hiker" went into production on 24 June fy|1952 and wrapped in late July.TCM [http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title.jsp?stid=78138 Overview] ] Location shooting took place in the Alabama Hills near Lone Pine [IMDB [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045877/locations Filming locations] ] and Big Pine, California. [TCM [http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title.jsp?stid=78138&category=Notes Notes] ] Working titles for the film were "The Difference" and "The Persuader".

Director Ida Lupino was a noted actress [IMDB [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0526946/ Ida Lupino] ] who fell into directing when Elmer Clifton got sick and couldn't finish the film he was directing for Filmways, 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 "woman's" films about social issue.

Lupino interviewed the two prospectors that 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.

"The Hitch-Hiker" premiered in Boston on 20 March fy|1953 and immediately went into general release. It was marketed with the tagline: "When was the last time you invited death into your car?"clr

Critical reception

Film critic Dennis Schwartz wrote of the film, "It's a pleasure to watch the action unfold without resorting to clichés. Talman's performance as a sadistic sleaze was powerful. His random crime spree strikes at the heart of middle-class America's insecurity about there being no place free of crime. " [ [http://www.sover.net/~ozus/hitchhiker.htm Schwartz, Dennis] . "Ozus' World Movie Reviews," review, December 11 2004. Last accessed: February 1 2008.]

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. [ [http://www.avclub.com/content/node/1662 Krewson, John] . Onion A.V. Club, DVD review, March 29 2002. Last accessed: April 23 2008.]

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." [ [http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/72096/the_hitch-hiker.html Time Out Film Guide] . Film review, 2008. Last accessed: April 23, 2008.]

"Noir" analysis

Critics Bob Porfiero and Alain Silver, in a review and analysis of the film, praised Lupino's use of shooting locations. They wrote, "The Hitch-Hiker"'s desert locale, although not so graphically dark as a cityscape at night, isolates the deadly as any in film noir." [Silver, Alain, and Elizabeth Ward, eds. "Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style," film noir analysis by Bob Porfiero and Alain Silver, page 130, 3rd edition, 1992. New York: The Overlook Press. ISBN 0-87951-479-5.]

Notable quote

* Emmett Myers: My folks were tough. When I was born, they took one look at this puss of mine and told me to get lost.

Notes

External links

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* [http://www.prairieghosts.com/peace.html "The Hitch-Hiker"] at Prairie Ghosts
* [http://www.archive.org/details/Hitch_Hiker "The Hitch-Hiker"] at the Internet Archive (public domain MP4 download)