The Hitch-hiker
| Director : | Ida Lupino |
|---|---|
| Starring: | Edmond O'Brien, Frank Lovejoy, William Talman |
| Country : | U.S. |
| Genre s : | Film Noir, National Film Registry, Women Directors |
| Type: | B&W |
| Year: | 1953 |
| Language: | English |
| Length: | 70 |
| Aspect Ratio: | 1.33:1 |
SYNOPSIS
The only true film noir ever directed by a woman, this tour-de-force thriller (considered by many, including Lupino herself, to be her best film) is a classic, tension-packed, three-way dance of death about two middle-class American homebodies (Edmond O'Brien and Frank Lovejoy) on vacation in Mexico on a long-awaited fishing trip. Suddenly their car and their very lives are commandeered by psychopathic serial killer Emmett Myers (William Talman).
The striking light/dark contrasts, the stunning compositions (such as the two kidnap victims separated by a narrow stream from a gun-cradling madman with a lazy eye) and the spatial integrity of a determining sense of locale (the pitiless topography of a rockbound, horizonless Mexico over which hovers an ever-present doom) all contribute mightily to this fascinating character study.
National Film Registry 1998
REVIEWS
"What is at stake in Lupino's films is the psyche of the victim." - Martin Scorsese
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Scene from Ida Lupino's THE HITCH-HIKER. Credit: Courtesy of Kino Lorber, Inc.
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