The Hitch-Hiker is a 1953 American independent film noir thriller film co-written and directed by Ida Lupino and starring Edmond O'Brien, William Talman, and Frank Lovejoy. Based on Billy Cook's series of murders in 1950, the film is about two friends who are taken hostage by a murderous hitchhiker during a car ride to Mexico. The Hitch-Hiker was the first American mainstream film noir to be directed by a woman. He was selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry of the United States in 1998 due to his "cultural, historical, or aesthetic significance." In the early 1950s, a hitchhiker robs and kills motorists who offer him a ride. A suspect, Emmett Myers (Talman), is made famous in the headlines of the newspapers. In California, two friends, Roy Collins (O'Brien) and Gilbert Bowen (Lovejoy), go on a planned fishing trip to San Felipe in Baja California, Mexico. In Calexico, California, they take Myers, who pulls out a gun and takes her hostage. Myers forces the two to drive him to Santa Rosalía in Baja California Sur, where he wants to escape the police manhunt by taking a ferry across the Gulf of California to Guaymas. To avoid prosecution, he orders them to stay off the main roads and instead try to drive through the Baja California desert. Collins and Bowen comply, hoping to be identified and stopped at the Mexican-American border in Mexicali, but to their dismay, they are let through. In Mexico, Myers sadistically terrorizes the two – including forcing Bowen to shoot a tin can out of Collins' hand from a long distance – and is amused by the unsuccessful attempts of Mexican law enforcement to catch him at checkpoints. After a tense moment when they stop to buy something to eat, they stop for the night. Collins and Bowen discuss their escape plans and agree that they must act at the right time or they will be killed. More and source -> Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitch-Hiker