The Hitch-Hiker

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Part of our Noir-vember Film Talk Series!

Partner up with our guest speakers all November long as they take you through the classic world of film noir, cinema’s home to all things existential and hard-boiled, and four of the most impactful pictures this genre has to offer!

Beyond its obvious cultural significance as the only classic film noir directed by a woman (actress Ida Lupino), The Hitch-Hiker is perhaps better remembered as simply one of the most nightmarish motion pictures of the 1950s. Inspired by the true-life murder spree of Billy Cook, The Hitch-Hiker is the tension-laden saga of two men on a camping trip (Edmond O’Brien and Frank Lovejoy) who are held captive by a homicidal drifter (William Talman). He forces them, at gunpoint, to embark on a grim joyride across the Mexican desert. Renegade filmmaking at its finest, The Hitch-Hiker was independently produced, which allowed Lupino and ex-husband/producer Collier Young to work from a treatment by blacklisted writer Daniel Mainwaring, and tackle an incident that was too brutal for the major studios to even consider.

Cayley James is a writer and arts worker based in Hamilton. Her writing has been featured in Cinema Scope Magazine, The Globe and Mail and CBC Arts. She makes her Film Talk debut as part of this year’s Noir-vember slate.