***New 2K Restoration / Introduced by film critic Elizabeth Weitzman with a post-film book signing of Renegade Women in Film & TV. Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the Music Box***

The first film noir directed by a woman was also among the most unsettling movies of its era. And it's lost none of its potency today. Inspired by the true-life murder spree of Billy Cook, THE HITCH-HIKER is the tension-laden saga of two men on a camping trip (Edmond O'Brien and Frank Lovejoy) who are held captive by a homicidal drifter (William Talman). Renegade filmmaking at its finest, THE HITCH-HIKER was independently produced, which allowed Lupino and ex-husband/producer Collier Young to work from a treatment by blacklisted writer Daniel Mainwaring, and tackle an incident that was too brutal for the major studios to even consider.

Elizabeth Weitzman is a film critic and author of the new history Renegade Women in Film & TV (published by Clarkson Potter)