4.3 Ida Lupino and the Hitch-Hiker

 4.3 Ida Lupino and The Hitch-Hiker


Lupino directs on the desert set of The Hitch-Hiker

In 1950s Hollywood, Ida Lupino was an anomaly. The daughter of an actress mother and musician father, Lupino's theatrical family paved the way for her to become an actress in British film, where she was dubbed "the English Jean Harlow." (Later, in Hollywood she dubbed herself "the poor man's Bette Davis," as the two competed for roles regularly, and they almost always went to Bette Davis.) She made the move to Hollywood, winning fans and critical acclaim (and briefly dating Howard Hughes) but risked the wrath of studio head Jack Warner when she started turning down roles and making her own script revisions. Eventually, she decided to try her hand at directing and she became groundbreaking in more ways than one.

Never Fear was a striking drama about a dancer whose life is changed when she is struck down with polio. Outrage was one of the first films made in Hollywood during the height of the Hays Code that directly dealt with the issue of rape. With The Bigamist, she became the first woman to direct herself in a major movie. She’s also the only woman who both directed and starred in episodes of The Twilight Zone (page not found).

1953's The Hitch-Hiker is widely considered the first mainstream film noir directed by a woman, and some think it may be the only one of this era. Lupino was considered a director of social issues and films typically aimed at women, but with The Hitch-Hiker, she had a chance to make a distinctly masculine film in a genre whose foundations rested upon damaged macho prowess and decidedly old-school ideas of men and women. The result is truly thrilling.

- Kayleigh Donaldson,"Ida Lupino's The Hitch-Hiker:
The Best (and only) Woman-Directed Film Noir" - Link page not found



The film was based on spree killer Billy Cook, who had a deformed eye & "HARD LUCK" tattooed on his fingers. When arrested he said, "I hate everybody's guts." 

The introduction to the film reads:

This is the true story of a man and a gun and a car. The gun belonged to the man. The car might have been yours or that young couple across the aisle. What you will see in the next seventy minutes could have happened to you. For the facts are actual.

Sometime in 1951 or 1952, actress, film director and movie star Ida Lupino walked into San Quentin and met a multiple murderer. The murderer was spree killer Billy Cook, a young man who had killed six people in the span of 22 days by road and by car, posing as a hitchhiker, holding hostage and/or doing away with a nice mechanic (whom Cook spared), an entire family, and a deputy sheriff. He killed a dog too...

As detailed in “The Making of The Hitch-Hiker,” Lupino said:

“I was allowed to see Billy Cook briefly for safety issues. I found San Quentin to be cold, dark and a very scary place inside. In fact, I was told by Collie (Collier Young) not to go; it was not safe. I needed a release from Billy Cook to do our film about him. My company, Filmakers, paid $3,000.00 to his attorney for exclusive rights to his story. I found Billy to be cold and aloof. I was afraid of him. Billy Cook had ‘Hard Luck’ tattooed on the fingers of his left hand and a deformed right eyelid that would never close completely. I could not wait to get the hell out of San Quentin...”

- Kim Morgan, Sunset Gun (Links to an external site.) 

TRUE CRIME ON SCREEN
Ida Lupino’s best-known directorial effort, The Hitch-Hiker is noteworthy not just as a masterclass in the art of suspense, but also as the first noir helmed by a female filmmaker.  Submerging her audience into the “based-on-a-true-story” nature of the events depicted within the picture’s taut 71 minutes before the title card even hits the screen, Lupino injects true-to-life terror into this fictionalized account of real-life serial killer Billy Cook, whose six-murder rampage spanned 22 days in 1950-51. (UCLA Film Archive)

Noir Alley - Intro
The Hitch-Hiker (1953)
Noir Alley: The Hitch-Hiker (1953) intro 20191117
Link Here

NOIR ALLEY: Outro
The Hitch-Hiker (1953)
Noir Alley: The Hitch-Hiker (1953) outro 20191117
Noir Alley: The Hitch-Hiker (1953) outro by Eddie Muller shown on Nov 17, 2019
From TCM's Noir Alley (Saturdays at Midnight ET and Sunday 10am ET) hosted by the Czar of Noir, Eddie Muller.

You are not required to watch the film, but for a look at a precursor to the way in which Katherine Bigalow's directorial career is framed you may find it an interesting specimen.

Press play to begin the film: FILM LINK DOESN'T WORK


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