Programme notes CH 02 — Noir After Dark
The Hitch-Hiker
Two fishermen, one killer in the back seat, and the desert as witness.
The only classic-era American noir directed by a woman, and it is leaner than anything the men were making. Ida Lupino strips the genre of the femme fatale, the city, the voiceover — leaves two ordinary friendships under a gun and a landscape that doesn't care. Based closely on a real spree, close enough that the survivors advised. Seventy-one minutes with no fat on them at all.
Credits — follow anyone
- Directed by
- Ida Lupino
- Photographed by
- Nicholas Musuraca
- With
- Edmond O'Brien · Frank Lovejoy · José Torvay · William Talman · Natividad Vacío · Jean Del Val
Every name is a door — each opens onto everything else that person made in the network.
The thread · every thread
The fatal ride, from both sides: Ulmer's drifter accepts one, Lupino's killer is one. Between the two films, the American road stops being freedom.
The same year, the same company, the same star. Lupino made both for The Filmakers in 1953 with Edmond O'Brien: one a road with two hostages and no women, the other two kitchens and no gun. Her two ways of trapping a man.