ABSTRACT
A scrappy, low-budget thriller selected for preservation by the United States National Film Registry in 1998, The Hitch-Hiker is championed as the first American film noir helmed by a woman and one of director Ida Lupino’s most accomplished efforts. The story concerns two war buddies, Roy Collins (Edmond O’Brien) and Gil Bowen (Frank Lovejoy), whose fishing trip derails after they unwittingly pick up a hitch-hiking serial killer, Emmet Myers (William Talman). An actor by trade, Lupino expanded her creative labor into screenwriting, directing, and producing, becoming the only woman to direct in Hollywood during the 1950s. Lupino’s directing work is marked by an investment in realism and an interest in exploring difficult social problems, often through the stories of characters suddenly cut off from “normal” society and unsure of how to move forward (Scheib, 55). While her first films as a director found her tackling women’s pictures, The Hitch-Hiker is an all-male affair in the semi-documentary and action-melodrama modes. The picture’s significance lies in its relation to postwar independent production trends; to Lupino’s embrace of realism and genre hybridity; and to her interest in revealing the double bind of postwar gender norms.
