The Hitch-Hiker (1953)

Badass suspense flick and a prime piece of desert-scorched pulp. It’s strange to think that Ida Lupino (who does not appear here as an actress) got her start as a director reluctantly. This film shows off a director made for the job. It’s a movie without many twists, just a simple story told with style to spare. It’s one of those perfectly made independent genre films, low on budget and high on efficiency. All muscle, no fat. Cool and ruthless. Lupino’s eye still feels contemporary sixty years later. A couple of guys on a fishing trip pick up a hitchhiker who happens to be an armed escaped convict who’s thumbing (and killing) his way across the American southwest and into Mexico—and that’s IT. Most of this seventy-minute wonder is little more than Edmond O’Brien and Frank Lovejoy dealing with having a gun pointed at them as they drive across hundreds of miles of highway. The bad guy—and he is one nasty fucker—is William Talman, a deformed demon with one paralyzed eyelid that never closes (which means that even when he’s asleep, he looks like he’s awake). What most impresses film nerds here is Lupino’s confidence with letting raw imagery tell the story, no dialogue needed. With a gun constantly on them, O’Brien and Lovejoy get few chances to talk to each other and come up with an attack plan. Their communication relies on looks and gestures, all of which Lupino keenly observes. Then there are the bold scenes set in Mexico where the dialogue is 100% untranslated Spanish, no subtitles, no gringos around to spell out things for the non-espanol inclined, no nothing except for body language and all the right details. Along for the ride is quintessential noir cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, bearing a bucket of shadows.