THE HITCH-HIKER ***

At the risk of sound sexist you would never guess that "The Hitch-Hiker" was directed by anyone other than the toughest of hombres. In fact, this male-dominated thriller about a hitch-hiking psychopath, (William Talman), who takes two fishermen hostage, (Edmond O'Brien and Frank Lovejoy), was directed by none other than Ida Lupino but then Lupino was no ordinary 'woman director'. At a time when the industry, particularly in Hollywood, was dominated by men Lupino fought the powers that be in order to make the kind of films she wanted. "The Hitch-Hiker" was very much a personal project made on the slimmest of budgets. She and producer Collier Young wrote the film and she shot it entirely on location in California, (standing in for Mexico), and it tells its suspenseful story in just 71 minutes. The premiss is simplicity itself and Lupino uses the desert locations superbly to build tension. If at times Talman's madman seems a little over the top the underplaying of both O'Brien and Lovejoy nicely balances things out. A small classic.