"The Hitch-Hiker" | |
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The Twilight Zone episode | |
Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 16 |
Directed by | Alvin Ganzer |
Teleplay by | Rod Serling |
Based on | The Hitch-Hiker by Lucille Fletcher |
Featured music | Stock, featuring Bernard Herrmann's score for the original radio version of "The Hitch-Hiker" |
Production code | 173-3612 |
Original air date | January 22, 1960 |
Guest appearances | |
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"The Hitch-Hiker" is the sixteenth episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone which originally aired on January 22, 1960, on CBS. It is based on Lucille Fletcher's radio play The Hitch-Hiker . It is frequently listed among the series' greatest episodes. [1] [2] [3]
Her name is Nan Adams. She's twenty-seven years old. Her occupation: buyer at a New York department store. At present on vacation, driving cross-country to Los Angeles, California from Manhattan.
The narration continues after the dialogue between Nan and the mechanic.
Minor incident on Highway 11 in Pennsylvania. Perhaps, to be filed away under "accidents you walk away from." But from this moment on, Nan Adams' companion on a trip to California will be terror. Her route: fear. Her destination: quite unknown.
Nan Adams, on a cross-country road trip from New York City to Los Angeles, gets a flat tire on U.S. Route 11 in Pennsylvania and survives losing control of the car and skidding onto the shoulder. The mechanic she has called to come put a spare tire on comments that he is surprised she survived, saying "you shouldn't have called for a mechanic. Somebody should've called for a hearse." He directs her to follow him into town where he will supply her with a new tire. As she is driving from the site of her blow-out, Nan notices a shabby and strange-looking man hitchhiking. Later, as she is preparing to leave the service station in town, she again sees this hitchhiker, but the mechanic does not see him when she mentions it. Unnerved, she drives away. As she continues her trip, Nan sees the same hitchhiker thumbing for a ride again in Virginia and at several other points in her journey.
She grows increasingly frightened of him. When she stops at a railroad crossing for an oncoming train, the man is situated on the other side of the tracks. She decides to drive ahead but the car stalls on the tracks. She manages to restart the vehicle and back up just as the train speeds past.
Nan is now convinced that the hitchhiker is trying to kill her. She continues to drive, becoming more and more afraid, stopping only when necessary. Every time she stops, however, the hitchhiker is there, always ahead of her.
She takes a side road in New Mexico but gets stranded when she runs out of gas. She reaches a gas station on foot but it is closed; although she rouses the proprietor from bed, he refuses to reopen and sell her gas due to the late hour. Nan is startled by a sailor on his way back to San Diego from leave. Eager for protection from the hitchhiker, she offers to drive the sailor all the way to his destination. He gladly accepts and persuades the station attendant to provide gas. As they drive together and discuss their mutual predicaments, she sees the hitchhiker on the road and swerves toward him. The sailor, who cannot see him, questions her driving; she admits she was trying to run over the hitchhiker. The sailor begins to fear for his safety and leaves her, despite her efforts to have him stay, even going so far as offering to go out with him.
In Arizona, Nan stops to call her mother in Manhattan, New York City. The woman who answers the phone says Mrs. Adams is in the hospital, having suffered a nervous breakdown after finding out that her daughter, Nan, died in Pennsylvania six days ago when the car she was driving blew a tire and overturned. Nan realizes the truth: she didn't survive the accident in Pennsylvania and the hitchhiker is none other than the personification of death, patiently and persistently waiting for her to realize that she has been dead all along. She loses all emotion, concern, and feels empty.
Nan returns to the car and looks in the vanity mirror on the visor. Instead of her reflection, she sees the hitchhiker, who says, "I believe you're going...my way?"
Nan Adams, age twenty-seven. She was driving to California; to Los Angeles. She didn't make it. There was a detour... through the Twilight Zone.
In the original radio play by Lucille Fletcher, the character of Nan was a man named Ronald Adams. The Hitch-Hiker was first presented on The Orson Welles Show (1941), Philip Morris Playhouse (1942), Suspense (1942), and The Mercury Summer Theater (1946). All of these radio productions were live performances starring Orson Welles as Ronald Adams.
When the teleplay was adapted for radio on The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas in 2002, the role of Nan Adams was played by Kate Jackson.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally a 1978 radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4, it was later adapted to other formats, including novels, stage shows, comic books, a 1981 TV series, a 1984 text adventure game, and 2005 feature film.
Mostly Harmless is a 1992 novel by Douglas Adams and the fifth book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. It is described on the cover of the first edition as "The fifth book in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhikers Trilogy". It was the last Hitchhiker's book written by Adams and his final book released in his lifetime.
The Hitch-Hiker is a 1953 American independent film noir thriller co-written and directed by Ida Lupino, and starring Edmond O'Brien, William Talman and Frank Lovejoy. Based on the 1950 killing spree of Billy Cook, the film follows two friends who are taken hostage by a murderous hitchhiker during an automobile trip to Mexico.
Suspense is a radio drama series broadcast on CBS Radio from 1940 through 1962.
"Walking Distance" is episode five of the American television series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on October 30, 1959. The episode was listed as the ninth best episode in the history of The Twilight Zone by Time magazine.
Christine is a horror novel by American writer Stephen King, published in 1983. It tells the story of a car apparently possessed by malevolent supernatural forces. In April 2013, PS Publishing released Christine in a limited 30th Anniversary Edition.
The vanishing hitchhiker is an urban legend in which people travelling by vehicle, meet with or are accompanied by a hitchhiker who subsequently vanishes without explanation, often from a moving vehicle.
Towel Day is celebrated every year on 25 May as a tribute to the author Douglas Adams by his fans. On this day, fans openly carry a towel with them, as described in Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, to demonstrate their appreciation for the books and the author. The commemoration was first held 25 May 2001, two weeks after Adams' death on 11 May.
Return to Glennascaul,, is a 1951 Irish short film starring Orson Welles. It was written and directed by Hilton Edwards, produced by Micheál Mac Liammóir for Dublin Gate Theatre Productions and distributed by Arthur Mayer.
The terms Primary Phase and Secondary Phase describe the first two radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, first broadcast in 1978. These were the first incarnations of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy franchise. Both were written by Douglas Adams and consist of six episodes each.
Violet Lucille Fletcher was an American screenwriter of film, radio and television. Her credits include The Hitch-Hiker, an original radio play written for Orson Welles and adapted for a notable episode of The Twilight Zone television series. Lucille Fletcher also wrote Sorry, Wrong Number, one of the most celebrated plays in the history of American radio, which she adapted and expanded for the 1948 film noir classic of the same name. Married to composer Bernard Herrmann in 1939, she wrote the libretto for his opera Wuthering Heights, which he began in 1943 and completed in 1951, after their divorce.
"Valley of the Shadow" is a 51-minute episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. In this episode, a reporter is held captive in a small town after he discovers its incredible secret.
"You Drive" is episode 134 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on January 3, 1964, on CBS. In this episode, the perpetrator of a fatal hit-and-run is hounded by the car he committed the crime with. Earl Hamner Jr. reprised this story, as he had already used it in the 1954 TV series 'Justice'.
The Hitcher II: I've Been Waiting is a 2003 American direct-to-DVD road horror thriller directed by Louis Morneau and starring C. Thomas Howell, returning as Jim Halsey, Kari Wuhrer as his girlfriend Maggie, and Jake Busey as psychotic hitchhiker Jack. It is the sequel to the 1986 film The Hitcher. The film was released on direct-to-DVD in the United States on July 15, 2003.
The Hitcher is a 2007 American road horror thriller film starring Sean Bean, Sophia Bush and Zachary Knighton. It is a remake of the 1986 film of the same name starring Rutger Hauer, C. Thomas Howell and Jennifer Jason Leigh. The Hitcher was directed by Dave Meyers and produced by Michael Bay’s production company Platinum Dunes.
"The Hitch-Hiker" is a short story by Roald Dahl that was originally published in July 1977 issue of the Atlantic Monthly, and later included in Dahl's short story collection The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More. The story is about a man who picks up a hitch-hiker whilst driving to London. The pick-pocketing of a policeman's notebook during a traffic stop closely follows "Hitch-Hike", a 1960 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents based on a short story by Ed Lacy.
"A Day in Beaumont" is the first segment of the twenty-fourth episode of the first season of the television series The Twilight Zone. In this segment, a couple spends an entire day trying to convince the people of a small town that aliens have landed nearby.
Two Weeks Vacation is a 1952 American animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. The cartoon follows Goofy on an ill-fated vacation trip traveling cross country. It was directed by Jack Kinney and features the voices of Pinto Colvig as Goofy and Alan Reed as the narrator and a hitchhiker.
The Hitch-Hiker is a radio play written by Lucille Fletcher. It was first presented on the November 17, 1941, broadcast of The Orson Welles Show on CBS Radio, featuring a score written and conducted by Bernard Herrmann, Fletcher's first husband. Welles performed The Hitch-Hiker four times on radio, and the play was adapted for a notable 1960 episode of the television series The Twilight Zone.
A hitchhiker is someone who goes hitchhiking.