The Hitch-Hiker (The Twilight Zone)

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“The Hitch-Hiker”
The Twilight Zone episode

Leonard Strong as the Hitch-Hiker
Episode no. Season 1
Episode 16
Written by Rod Serling (story by Lucille Fletcher)
Directed by Alvin Ganzer
Guest stars Inger Stevens : Nan
Leonard Strong : The Hitch-Hiker
Adam Williams : Sailor
Russ Bender : Counterman
Lew Gallo : Mechanic
George Mitchell : Gas Station Man
Eleanor Audley : Mrs. Whitney (voice)
Production no. 173-3612
Original airdate January 22, 1960
Episode chronology
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"I Shot an Arrow Into the Air" "The Fever"
List of Twilight Zone episodes

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

Contents

[edit] 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's companion on a trip to California will be terror; her route - fear; her destination - quite unknown. ”

[edit] Synopsis

The story begins with a woman, Nan Adams, who has been in a car accident on a cross-country road trip from New York to Los Angeles. A mechanic puts a spare tire on her car, and then leads her to the nearest town to fix it properly. Just before she leaves, she notices a strange-looking man hitchhiking. Unnerved, she drives away quickly. As it turns out, this is the first of many times that she will see the same man, always hitch-hiking and wanting her to pick him up. She becomes increasingly frightened of him, and when she is stuck on a railroad crossing and nearly hit by a train, she becomes convinced that the hitch-hiker is trying to kill her. She continues to drive, becoming more and more afraid, stopping only when necessary; but every time she does, the man is there.

When she ends up stranded in New Mexico, she meets a different man, a sailor on his way back from his leave and returning to his ship in San Diego. Eager for protection from the hitch-hiker she's been seeing, she offers to drive the sailor to San Diego herself. However, she is still paranoid about the hitch-hiker, and when she sees him on the road and tries to run him over, the sailor, who can't see him, begins to fear for her sanity and leaves her. In Arizona, Nan stops to call her mother. However, the woman who answers the phone, Mrs. Whitney, says that Mrs. Adams is in the hospital: She had a nervous breakdown after finding out that her daughter, Nan, was killed in an auto accident in Pennsylvania six days ago, when the car she was driving blew a tire and overturned. At this point, Nan realized the truth: The hitch-hiker is not a man who wants her to die, but rather, the personification of death itself, just patiently and persistently waiting for her to realize that she has been dead all along.

"I believe you're going...my way?" he inquires from the back seat, almost friendly.

As Nan accepts her fate, Rod Serling narrates the final lines.

[edit] 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. ”

[edit] Trivia

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • In the original story by Lucille Fletcher, the character of Nan was a man named Ronald. The story had earlier been adapted for the radio programs Campbell Playhouse (1941), Suspense (1942), and Mercury Summer Theater (1946). All three radio productions starred Orson Welles as Ronald Adams.
  • In an episode of the TV sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, Ray and Robert talk about this episode.
  • The plot of this episode is similar to that of the cult horror film Carnival of Souls, which was released in 1962.

[edit] External links

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