Film
The Hitch-Hiker
- Director
- Ida Lupino
- Certificate
- 12A
- Running Time
- 71 mins
Often credited with being the first film noir directed by a woman, Ida Lupino‘s 1953 thriller is based on the real-life case of psycho Billy Cook. Edmund O’Brien and Frank Lovejoy are chums on a weekend fishing trip who stop to pick up hitch-hiker William Talman, little suspecting that he’s a psychopath who has already slaughtered several other good samaritans. Boasting a terrifically malevolent performance by Talman, the film was originally rejected by the BBFC but has subsequently been championed by Martin Scorsese and the US National Film Registry, which selected it for preservation back in 1998.
It’s back on screen in the BFI Thriller season.
Our newsletters emailed directly to you
