The Hitch-Hiker (The Twilight Zone)

"**The Hitch-Hiker**"
"The Hitch-Hiker"
The Twilight Zone episode
	Inger Stevens in a scene from the 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
	Inger Stevens; Leonard Strong; Adam Williams; Lew Gallo; George Mitchell; Eleanor Audley;
Episode chronology
← Previous; "I Shot an Arrow into the Air"	Next →; "The Fever"
	The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) (season 1)
	List of episodes

"The Hitch-Hiker" is episode sixteen of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It 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]

Opening narration

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...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.

Plot

Nan Adams, 27, 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. 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 never survived 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 in her place the hitchhiker, who says, "I believe you're going...my way?"

Closing narration

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.

Cast

Inger Stevens as Nan Adams
Leonard Strong as The Hitch-Hiker
Adam Williams as Sailor
Russ Bender as Counterman
Lew Gallo as Mechanic
George Mitchell as Gas Station Man
Eleanor Audley as Mrs. Whitney (voice)

Episode notes

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 starred Orson Welles as Ronald Adams.

Serling named his character "Nan", after one of his daughters.

Nan's car is a light-colored 1959 Mercury Montclair four-door hardtop that had the inside rear-view mirror and front door vent windows removed. However, in the scene where Nan swerved toward the hitch-hiker, the car shown is a black 1957 Ford two-door sedan.

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.

This episode was mentioned in Joy Fielding's novel See Jane Run.

References

^ Cruz, Gilbert (October 2, 2009). "The Hitch Hiker (1960)". TIME. Retrieved May 31, 2016.
^ Wheatley, Cliff (June 27, 2014). "The Top 10 Twilight Zone Episodes". IGN. Retrieved May 31, 2016.
^ Morgan, David. "The 10 greatest "Twilight Zone" episodes: "The HItch-Hiker"". CBS. Retrieved May 31, 2016.

Sources

DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0
Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0

External links

[1] Cruz, Gilbert (October 2, 2009). "The Hitch Hiker (1960)". TIME. Retrieved May 31, 2016.

[2] Wheatley, Cliff (June 27, 2014). "The Top 10 Twilight Zone Episodes". IGN. Retrieved May 31, 2016.

[3] Morgan, David. "The 10 greatest "Twilight Zone" episodes: "The HItch-Hiker"". CBS. Retrieved May 31, 2016.

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v t e The Twilight Zone (1959) episodes
Season 1	"Where Is Everybody?" "One for the Angels" "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" "Walking Distance" "Escape Clause" "The Lonely" "Time Enough at Last" "Perchance to Dream" "Judgment Night" "And When the Sky Was Opened" "What You Need" "The Four of Us Are Dying" "Third from the Sun" "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" "The Hitch-Hiker" "The Fever" "The Last Flight" "The Purple Testament" "Elegy" "Mirror Image" "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" "A World of Difference" "Long Live Walter Jameson" "People Are Alike All Over" "Execution" "The Big Tall Wish" "A Nice Place to Visit" "Nightmare as a Child" "A Stop at Willoughby" "The Chaser" "A Passage for Trumpet" "Mr. Bevis" "The After Hours" "The Mighty Casey" "A World of His Own"
Season 2	"King Nine Will Not Return" "The Man in the Bottle" "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" "A Thing About Machines" "The Howling Man" "Eye of the Beholder" "Nick of Time" "The Lateness of the Hour" "The Trouble with Templeton" "A Most Unusual Camera" "The Night of the Meek" "Dust" "Back There" "The Whole Truth" "The Invaders" "A Penny for Your Thoughts" "Twenty Two" "The Odyssey of Flight 33" "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" "Static" "The Prime Mover" "Long Distance Call" "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" "The Silence" "Shadow Play" "The Mind and the Matter" "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" "The Obsolete Man"
Season 3	"Two" "The Arrival" "The Shelter" "The Passersby" "A Game of Pool" "The Mirror" "The Grave" "It's a Good Life" "Deaths-Head Revisited" "The Midnight Sun" "Still Valley" "The Jungle" "Once Upon a Time" "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" "A Quality of Mercy" "Nothing in the Dark" "One More Pallbearer" "Dead Man's Shoes" "The Hunt" "Showdown with Rance McGrew" "Kick the Can" "A Piano in the House" "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" "To Serve Man" "The Fugitive" "Little Girl Lost" "Person or Persons Unknown" "The Little People" "Four O'Clock" "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" "The Trade-Ins" "The Gift" "The Dummy" "Young Man's Fancy" "I Sing the Body Electric" "Cavender Is Coming" "The Changing of the Guard"
Season 4	"In His Image" "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" "Valley of the Shadow" "He's Alive" "Mute" "Death Ship" "Jess-Belle" "Miniature" "Printer's Devil" "No Time Like the Past" "The Parallel" "I Dream of Genie" "The New Exhibit" "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" "On Thursday We Leave for Home" "Passage on the Lady Anne" "The Bard"
Season 5	"In Praise of Pip" "Steel" "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" "A Kind of a Stopwatch" "The Last Night of a Jockey" "Living Doll" "The Old Man in the Cave" "Uncle Simon" "Probe 7, Over and Out" "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain" "Ninety Years Without Slumbering" "Ring-a-Ding Girl" "You Drive" "The Long Morrow" "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" "Black Leather Jackets" "Night Call" "From Agnes—With Love" "Spur of the Moment" "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" "Queen of the Nile" "What's in the Box" "The Masks" "I Am the Night—Color Me Black" "Sounds and Silences" "Caesar and Me" "The Jeopardy Room" "Stopover in a Quiet Town" "The Encounter" "Mr. Garrity and the Graves" "The Brain Center at Whipple's" "Come Wander with Me" "The Fear" "The Bewitchin' Pool"