The Hitch-Hiker

These three actors are transfixing in one of those noirs that gets out of city limits and into our collective thoughts. Talman is disturbing as an original serial killer. The “good guys,” the hostages with families at home in Arizona, are not where they are supposed to be because they were planning on slipping down to Mexico to enjoy the prostitutes. Their desire to escape their suburban middle class lives is contrasted with Talman’s criminal freedom, a freedom doomed by being hunted by society. Who is worse off? Who lives more intelligently? Who is really sane? The device of Talman’s bad eye, which doesn’t close even when he’s sleeping, is distinct.

1953, directed by Ida Lupino