The Hitch-Hiker
While vacationing in Mexico, two friends give a ride to a hitchhiker who turns out to be a killer on the run, and he forces them to help him escape the police on a harrowing drive across the desert. Ida Lupino directed and co-wrote this tense thriller, inspired by a real 1950 crime spree, at a time when she was the only woman working as a director in Hollywood. Selected for the National Film Registry in 1998.
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Public domain · Source: Library of Congress
How it was made
Shot on location near Big Pine, California, in the summer of 1952 by The Filmakers, the independent company Ida Lupino founded with producer Collier Young. RKO Radio Pictures distributed it.
- Live action
Filmed with a camera, with actors and real locations.
- Independent production
Made outside the major studio system.
Produced by The Filmakers, Hollywood, California.
Credits
- Director
- Ida Lupino
- Producer
- Collier Young
- Screenplay
- Collier Young, Ida Lupino
- Adaptation
- Robert L. Joseph
- Story
- Daniel Mainwaring (uncredited on screen)
- Director of photography
- Nicholas Musuraca
- Editor
- Douglas Stewart
- Music
- Leith Stevens
- Musical director
- C. Bakaleinikoff
- Art directors
- Albert S. D’Agostino, Walter E. Keller
- Production company
- The Filmakers
- Distributor
- RKO Radio Pictures
- Cast
- Edmond O’Brien (Roy Collins), Frank Lovejoy (Gilbert Bowen), William Talman (Emmett Myers), José Torvay, Sam Hayes, Wendell Niles, Jean Del Val, Clark Howat, Natividad Vacío