The Hitch-Hiker is a 1953 American film noir thriller co-written and directed by Ida Lupino, starring Edmond O'Brien, William Talman and Frank Lovejoy, about two friends taken hostage by a hitchhiker during an automobile trip to Mexico. The Hitch-Hiker was the first American mainstream film noir directed by a woman. It was selected in 1998 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant." The film was a fictionalized version of the Billy Cook murder spree. Plot In the early 1950’s, a hitchhiker robs and kills a succession of people who offer him rides. A suspect, Emmett Myers (Talman), is publicized in newspaper headlines. Two friends, Roy Collins (O'Brien) and Gilbert Bowen (Lovejoy) are driving in southern California toward a planned fishing trip in the Mexican town of San Felipe on the Gulf of California. Just south of Mexicali, they pick up Myers, who pulls a gun and takes them hostage. Myers forces them to journey over dirt roads into the Baja California Peninsula toward Santa Rosalía, where he plans to take a ferry across the Gulf of California to Guaymas. Myers terrorizes and humiliates the two men, at one point forcing Bowen, standing a long distance away, to shoot a tin can out of Collins' hand. One night during their one attempt to escape, Collins hurts his ankle. When the car is damaged, Myers forces them to continue on foot despite Collins' injury. Myers ridicules the two men for missing opportunities to escape for fear the other might be killed. He boasts, "You can get anything at the end of a gun." Police in the U.S. and Mexico are hunting Myers, and authorities know that he has abducted the two men, who hear this on the radio. They understand that their lives are in danger. To mislead Myers, the police purposely alter information to suggest they think he is still in the United States. Arriving at Santa Rosalía, Myers tries to conceal his identity by forcing Collins to wear his clothes. Discovering the regular ferry to Guaymas has burned, he hires a fishing boat. A local resident discovers his identity and contacts authorities, who are waiting at the pier. After a shootout and scuffle, Myers is arrested and Collins and Bowen are freed unharmed. Cast Edmond O'Brien as Roy Collins Frank Lovejoy as Gilbert Bowen William Talman as Emmett Myers José Torvay