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The Hitch-Hiker
Nov. 23rd, 2018 08:27 amHappy Noirvember! In honor of the month, I watched Ida Lupino’s The Hitch-Hiker, which is billed as “the only film noir directed by a woman.”
I don’t know about only - it’s always dangerous to say something is the only thing of its kind - but it is a good movie. Roy Collins and Gilbert Bowen are headed out for a fishing trip when they stop to pick up a man having car trouble.
It’s night when Roy and Gil pick the man up. We catch an indistinct glimpse of his broken down car and the man himself as he climbs into the dark back seat, so deeply in shadow that the darkness swallows him up. The first thing to emerge from the darkness is the point of his gun. Keep driving, he says. Keep your hands where I can see them.
And only then does he lean forward, so that his face emerges out of the darkness. We’ve seen him before: he’s Emmett Myers, already wanted for a series of hitch-hiking murders. He wants Gil and Roy to drive him to Mexico, where he hopes to elude the police.
A good half of the film takes place in the car, which could have become dull but instead effectively ratchets up the tension with its claustrophobic atmosphere. Emmett is tense, jittery, brimming with bravado: he’s got a nasty edge that gets nastier when it seems that the manhunt’s closing in - or when it seems that it’s backing off, and fear gives way to momentary relief. Roy and Gil try to be stoic. Their fear is evident in the their drawn faces, their occasional glances at each other out of the corner of their eyes. They don’t dare look at each other full on with Emmett watching.
Emmett is baffled by their friendship - although not so baffled that he doesn’t handily use it against them. “You could’ve escaped if you weren’t always looking out for each other,” he tells them, taunting and yet a little puzzled, too, by their failure to look out for number one.
Why doesn’t he kill them and take their car, as he did with his earlier victims? You get the feeling that it’s because he’s enjoying playing with these unusually difficult mice.
I don’t know about only - it’s always dangerous to say something is the only thing of its kind - but it is a good movie. Roy Collins and Gilbert Bowen are headed out for a fishing trip when they stop to pick up a man having car trouble.
It’s night when Roy and Gil pick the man up. We catch an indistinct glimpse of his broken down car and the man himself as he climbs into the dark back seat, so deeply in shadow that the darkness swallows him up. The first thing to emerge from the darkness is the point of his gun. Keep driving, he says. Keep your hands where I can see them.
And only then does he lean forward, so that his face emerges out of the darkness. We’ve seen him before: he’s Emmett Myers, already wanted for a series of hitch-hiking murders. He wants Gil and Roy to drive him to Mexico, where he hopes to elude the police.
A good half of the film takes place in the car, which could have become dull but instead effectively ratchets up the tension with its claustrophobic atmosphere. Emmett is tense, jittery, brimming with bravado: he’s got a nasty edge that gets nastier when it seems that the manhunt’s closing in - or when it seems that it’s backing off, and fear gives way to momentary relief. Roy and Gil try to be stoic. Their fear is evident in the their drawn faces, their occasional glances at each other out of the corner of their eyes. They don’t dare look at each other full on with Emmett watching.
Emmett is baffled by their friendship - although not so baffled that he doesn’t handily use it against them. “You could’ve escaped if you weren’t always looking out for each other,” he tells them, taunting and yet a little puzzled, too, by their failure to look out for number one.
Why doesn’t he kill them and take their car, as he did with his earlier victims? You get the feeling that it’s because he’s enjoying playing with these unusually difficult mice.
