Republished from the show notes of my other site, Fuds on Film.
We start things off in 1953, with Ida Lupino’s The Hitch-Hiker, which is about, and this will shock you, a hitch hiker. William Talman’s Emmett Myers is rampaging his way across the south west of North America, murdering and stealing from those unfortunate enough to stop and pick him up.
His latest victims are two American fishermen, who travelled down to Baja California for a holiday that’s about to go very sour. Edmond O’Brien’s Roy Collins and Frank Lovejoy’s Gilbert Bowen soon find themselves on the wrong end of Myers’ revolver, forced to drive him back to the USA while staying one step ahead of the law which has started a manhunt on both sides of the border.
Narratively I don’t think there’s all that much else to tell you about The Hitch-Hiker – it sets up its premise quickly and efficiently and gets on with showing the effects of this stressful situation on Collins and Bowen, who understandably grow increasingly frayed over the course of the piece with the ever present threat of imminent death from the unstable Myers looming over them.
Just as well it’s efficient, as 70 minutes is not a great deal of time to do anything with, let alone show the effects of this psychological nightmare while also interspersing enough of the, to be honest, perfunctory, look at the police chase to give a bit of a time pressure to proceedings, but it works pretty well, with O’Brien and Lovejoy getting quite convincingly increasingly rattled as the tension increases.
I’m not quite so convinced by William Talman’s turn, although that’s perhaps more due to a lack of material to do much with – I don’t need or want any further character motivation or development from him, but he’s still played just a little too close to moustache twirling for a movie that’s otherwise doing a great job of believable actions and reactions.
It’s a taut crime drama that doesn’t outstay its welcome, and while it’s not life changing cinema it’s an enjoyable 70 minutes that’s worth catching up with.