The Hitch Hiker (1953)

When was the last time you invited death into your car?

The Hitch Hiker (1953 Film Noir Cult Classic)

Two friends on a fishing trip pick up a stranded motorist who turns out to be a psychotic escaped convict. This sociopath has already murdered other good Samaritans in his efforts to evade authorities. He sadistically taunts and threatens the two men and perversely delights in telling them that he has them both marked for death sometime before the end of the trip. His destination is a ferryboat in Baja, California, which he hopes will help him get to the mainland. The hostages hope to stay alive long enough to escape or be rescued by Mexican authorities.
The film was based upon an incident that happened in California in the early 1950s. A man named Billy Cook murdered a family of five, including three children, and then killed a traveling salesman.

He then kidnapped two hunters and took them across the border into Mexico, intending to kill them, too, but before he could he was captured by Mexican police and subsequently extradited to the US, where he was tried for the murders, convicted, and died in the gas chamber at San Quentin on Dec. 12, 1952



The Hitch-Hiker (1953) is a film noir directed by Ida Lupino about two fishing buddies who pick up a mysterious hitchhiker during a trip to Mexico. The movie was written by Robert L. Joseph, Lupino and her husband Collier Young based on a story by Out of the Past screenwriter Daniel Mainwaring, who was blacklisted at the time and did not receive screen credit.

     

In 1998, The Hitch-Hiker was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant."