Inspired by the killing spree of Billy Cook in 1951, Ida Lupino’s The Hitch-Hiker is a tightly crafted serial killer noir in which two best friends are taken hostage by a psychotic hitchhiker they pick up in the middle of nowhere. Featuring a female director yet an exclusively male cast, The Hitch-Hiker switches the noir geographical formula on its head, the threats of violence which for so long lurked in dark, crowded urban environs are transported to the sunny, open roads of the rural West. En route to a fishing vacation across the Mexican border in Baja California, Roy Collins (Edmond O’Brien) and Gilbert Bowen (Frank Lovejoy) pick up a thumber but almost immediately regret it when he pulls out a gun, revealing himself as serial killer Emmett Myers (William Talman), who already has left a string of robberies and corpses in his wake. As Myers controls and humiliates them, Mexican and United States law enforcement collaborate to find the trio, even leaking fake updates to news broadcasters to manipulate Myers’ plans. It’s a simple story with pragmatic direction by Lupino so viewers shouldn’t expect a narrative or visual masterpiece, but, as a study of raw power dynamics among men in primitive surroundings, it’s a brilliant work.