☆ ☆ ☆
The
Hitch-Hiker (1953) – I. Lupino
Two guys off for a fishing trip pick up a
hitcher who is wanted for murder. He forces them at gunpoint to drive through
Mexico to Santa Rosalia on the Gulf – a 500-mile journey. It’s tense all the way but there is nary a
chance for escape. Even at night, the
hitch-hiker seems awake because he’s got a partially paralyzed eye that never
closes. William Talman is brutal and
harsh as this thug. So, it’s a noir
set-up and the film is framed as though, it coulda been you who picked him
up. But on closer inspection, the noir
logic that dictates that one fatal mistake usually brings on a protagonist’s
doom does seem to be operating. Instead
of heading straight to their fishing hole, Edmond O’Brien and Frank Lovejoy
take a detour to Mexicali for a drink and possibly some fun away from their
wives (O’Brien’s idea). Nothing happens
but if they hadn’t gone that way, they never would have met Talman. But, hell, who knows what sorts of missteps
lay before us, where the fickle finger of fate is always waiting to poke us in
the eye? Ida Lupino, a noir veteran in front of the camera, directed this
concise thriller.
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