The Twilight Zone: Season 1, Episode Sixteen “The Hitch-Hiker”

Original Air Date: January 22, 1960
Writer: Lucille Fletcher/Rod Serling
Director: Alvin Ganzer

“But terror isn’t formless. It has a form. He was beckoning me…”

A disturbing traveler’s tale and a dark modern ghost story, “The Hitch-Hiker” was adapted from a radio play written by Lucille Fletcher. It first premiered on the radio in 1941 featuring the voice of Orson Welles. The story was inspired by a cross-country road trip taken in 1939 by Ms. Fletcher and her first husband, the famous composer Bernard Herrmann (creator of the initial Twilight Zone theme as well as numerous other classic scores). They believed they had spotted an odd hitch-hiker on the Brooklyn Bridge and then again later on the Pulaski Skyway. Lucille Fletcher found the whole experience eerie and so she developed it into a chilling story. Rod Serling had initially heard “The Hitch-Hiker” on the radio as a child and he never forgot it.

“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 Adam’s companion on a trip to California will be terror; her route: fear; her destination: quite unknown.”
-Rod Serling

Nan Adams (played by Swedish-American actress Inger Stevens) is a 27-year old woman, a buyer at a New York department store, presently on a road trip from New York to Los Angeles, California. After her tire blows out on Highway 11 in Pennsylvania she receives roadside assistance from a mechanic who chuckles that she must be “on the side of the angels” and that she probably should have called for a “hearse” instead. When the bill comes to $29.70, Nan is thankful that it’s “cheaper than a funeral.” Suddenly, she begins seeing a hitch-hiker standing along the side of the road. He seems to stare directly at her. He appears to be a shabby, scarecrow of a man but his presence terrifies Nan. She continues along the road, but no matter how far she goes, or how fast she drives, she keeps seeing this same strange hitch-hiker standing along the roadside. With his thumb outstretched, the man’s face delivers an unsettling, blank expression each time she passes him along the highway, outside diners, and beside gas stations, and in open fields. Leonard Strong wonderfully captures this haunting character who stalks and grimly stares at Nan, knowing she cannot escape his lure. At one point, he slinks up behind her parked car and asks, “heading west?” but Nan simply shrieks and speeds away. At another point, her car gets stuck while crossing the train tracks moments before a speeding train heads straight at her. All the while, the hitch-hiker simply stands by, ever-watchful of his victim.

Nan starts taking the backroads to avoid this strange man, but when her car runs out of gas in the middle of the night she pulls off to a rest stop where thankfully a sailor (played Adam Williams) offers her help. We (the audience) feel a certain sense of safety and security at the sailor’s presence, despite the fact that he seems a bit too cozy with Nan. Can he be trusted? She and the sailor begin driving across the country together toward San Diego where his ship is docked, but the unnamed sailor soon grows nervous about Nan, especially after she continues having visions of the hitch-hiker. At one point, she tries to veer off the road and crash her car directly into the mysterious hitch-hiker, at which point the sailor decides Nan is likely mad. He abandons her alone at night in her car. Despite her pleas, she finds herself isolated once again. She seeks out a public telephone to call her mother, but she is informed by a cold voice on the other end of the line named Mrs. Whitney that her mother has suffered a nervous breakdown because “Nan was killed just six days ago…” Apparently, as it turns out Nan died back in Pennsylvania when her tire was blown out. Drained after learning of her own death, Nan returns to her car in a state of numbness and acceptance. In her drop-down mirror, she sees the Hitch-Hiker sitting alone in her backseat. “I believe you’re going… my way,” he says. We are led to believe the hitch-hiker is a haunted form of Death personified, or perhaps the grim reaper, and Nan is merely a ghost, passing from one life to the next.

“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.”
-Rod Serling

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My Thoughts on “The Hitch-Hiker”

“The Hitch-Hiker” bears all the hallmarks of a classic Twilight Zone episode –it carries a looming sense of dread throughout the story as a haunting supernatural entity repeatedly torments a lone woman traveling by herself on the highway, stranded in the darkness, gaslit by everyone around her, vulnerable to the predatory instincts of both a hitch-hiker and a sailor alike. This quintessential episode offers a rare bit of internal monologue as we witness Nan’s pure sense of isolation and dread from within her own head. It plays out like a personal journal about Nan slowly discovering the truth of her fate. In addition, the open American highway –a classic motif in American literature from Steinbeck to Kerouac– is a place which typically engenders a place of freedom, anonymity, and escapism. Yet this feeling is disrupted by the creeping awareness that Nan is being stalked. She is entrapped and unable to escape despite being in total control of her automobile, the ultimate symbol of American confidence and independence. In one particularly striking moment, Nan pleads with a sailor to stay with her in the middle of the night. In any other situation, Nan might have felt threatened by such a request, but overwhelmed by fear of the hitch-hiker, she decides to embrace the devil she knows (the sailor), rather than risk the devil she doesn’t (the hitch-hiker). Still, the sailor, once a welcome bit of flirtatious normalcy, decides Nan has lost her mind and he flees. Is he also dead? Can Nan still interact with people who are alive? Is she in some kind of limbo?

It goes without saying that Leonard Strong brilliantly portrays the terrifying hitch-hiker almost as if he is a friendly, unassuming vagrant with a disturbing little half-smile. His performance is twisted and unsettling –a pitch perfect display of horror. This is a top tier episode of The Twilight Zone –well cast, well written, and well scored by Bernard Herrmann. The following is a quote from Lucille Fletcher’s original radio play for “The Hitchhiker”: “Outside it is night – the vast, soulless night of New Mexico. A million stars are in the sky. Ahead of me stretch a thousand miles of empty mesa, mountains, prairies – desert. Somewhere among them, he is waiting for me. Somewhere I shall know who he is, and who . . . I . . . am.”

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Credits:

• Director: Alvin Ganzer
  • Alvin Ganzer (1911-2009) began his career in casting and as an assistant director at Paramount, working on films like The Great McGinty (1940), The Hitler Gang (1944), Going My Way (1944), and At War with the Army (1950). The first feature film he directed was The Girls of Pleasure Island (1953), which starred Leo Genn, Don Taylor, and Gene Barry. Ganzer was handed the film after director F. Hugh Herbert fell ill during production. Ganzer directed episodes of many television shows like Science Fiction Theatre, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and Lost in Space. He directed four episodes of The Twilight Zone (“What You Need,” The Hitch-Hiker,” “Nightmare as a Child,” and “The Mighty Casey“). He and his wife Murial had two children. He died in Hawaii in 2009.
• Written by: Rod Serling (based on “The Hitch-Hiker” by Lucille Fletcher, then-wife of composer Bernard Herrmann)
  • Violet Lucille Fletcher (1912-2000) was a Brooklyn-born writer whose celebrated 1941 radio play “The Hitch-Hiker” was purchased by Cayuga Productions for $2,000 for The Twilight Zone. The original radio play was broadcast four times in 1942 and 1946, and all four times Orson Welles performed the voice of the lead male character, Ronald Adams. It was scored by Fletcher’s then-husband and legendary composer Bernard Herrmann (they were married in 1939). The idea for the story came to Fletcher when she and Herrmann were driving on a cross-country road trip and spotted an odd-looking hitch-hiker who seemingly appeared in two different locations: the Brooklyn Bridge and the Pulaski Skyway in New Jersey. Fletcher also penned another highly regarded radio play entitled “Sorry, Wrong Number” which was later made into a 1948 film of the same name starring Barbara Stanwyck and Burt Lancaster. Fletcher and Herrmann had two daughters together but divorced in 1948 when he had an affair with his cousin (whom he later married). Fletcher then married Douglass Wallop and they remained married until his death in 1985. She later died of a stroke in 2000 at the age of 88.
• Music: stock music featuring Bernard Herrmann’s score for the original radio version of “The Hitch-Hiker”
• Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
• Production Manager: Ralph W. Nelson
• Art Directors: George W. Davis and William Ferrari
• Film Editor: Bill Mosher
• Assistant Director: Edward Denault
• Set Decorations: Henry Grace and Rudy Butler
• Sound: Franklin Milton and Jean Valentino
• Casting Director: Mildred Gusse
• Starring:
  • Inger Stevens…..Nan Adams
    • Ingrid Stensland, or “Inger Stevens” (1934-1970) was born in Stockholm, Sweden. Her mother abandoned the family when she was six years old, taking Inger’s younger brother with her. Soon after, Inger’s father moved to the United States, leaving Inger and one of her brothers, Ola, in the custody of a family maid. She and her brother eventually relocated to the United States to join their father and his new wife in New York while he finished his PhD at Columbia University and then later taught at Kansas State University. Amidst this tumultuous upbringing, Inger Stevens worked as a burlesque dancer and a chorus girl before breaking into Hollywood. She got her big break in films like Man on Fire (1957) starring Bing Crosby (with whom she had a highly publicized romance), Cry Terror! (1958) starring James Mason, and The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959) starring Harry Belafonte. She appeared in many television shows like Bonanza, Route 66, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Eleventh Hour, Dick Powell’s Zane Grey Theatre, and perhaps her most famous recurring role in Farmer’s Daughter, among other shows. She appeared in two episodes of The Twilight Zone (“The Hitch-Hiker” and “The Lateness of the Hour“). She was briefly married to her agent from 1955-1957. They had no children. She was tragically a depressive person and made several suicide attempts throughout her short life. For example, on New Year’s Day in 1959, following a depressing party the evening prior, she swallowed 25 sleeping pills and a quantity of ammonia in an attempt to take her own life. She also had several near-death experiences. In 1961, she was a passenger on a Boeing 707 that crash-landed in Lisbon. As the plane was slowly engulfed in flames, Stevens curled up on the floor of the cabin, resigning herself to death. However, at the last minute she changed her mind and de-boarded the plane. She was actually the last person off the plane before it burst into flames, exploding about a half-minute after she evacuated. She collapsed, along with 11 others during the filming of Cry Terror! (1958) due to carbon monoxide poisoning in a subway tunnel. She initially declined treatment but was put in an oxygen tent for several days to recuperate. In yet another bizarre incident, her jaw was dislocated while filming an episode of Zane Grey Theater. At any rate, her life met a tragic end under somewhat murky circumstances. She died in what was ruled a suicide by acute barbiturate poisoning at the age of 35 in 1970. Her roommate Lola McNally found Inger Stevens lying near-death on the kitchen floor of her Hollywood home, barely able to utter a few words. She called 911 but Inger Stevens died in the ambulance while en route to the hospital. On the evening of her death, Stevens was rumored to be having dinner with her boyfriend Burt Reynolds. Apparently, they got into an argument of some sort, but no foul play was suspected by officials. After her death, it was later confirmed that she had been secretly married to black actor Ike Jones in 1961 in Tijuana, Mexico, though they had both kept the marriage a secret in order to protect their careers in age of heightened racial tension. Ike Jones was the first black graduate of UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television. By the time of Stevens’s death, their marriage had become strained and they were separated (though never divorced). Stevens’s brother later confirmed the secret marriage in court and the Los Angeles Superior Court ruled in favor of Ike Jones being named the administrator of her estate. It was controversial at the time because there was no record of their marriage and Ike Jones was apparently facing financial troubles at the time while managing a string of convalescent homes.
    • Inger Stevens accepted this role on The Twilight Zone because she was suspended from Paramount Studios at the time over her insistence that she only appear in roles that lacked “artistic mediocrity.” Thus she was barred from appearing in motion pictures, so she turned to television roles that caught her eye.
  • Leonard Strong…..The Hitch-Hiker
    • Leonard Strong (1908-1980) was a Salt Lake City native who got his start in acting playing Japanese soldiers in American films during World War II. He was often typecast in Asian stereotyped roles. He appeared in a variety of films including Anna and the King of Siam (1946), Destination Gobi (1953), The King and I (1956), Shane (1953), and Escape From Zahrain (1962). He played the nemesis known as “The Claw” in the Get Smart television show and he appeared in a Season 5 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents entitled “The Cure” written by Robert Bloch. He and his wife had three children. He died in 1980 in Gendale, California at the age of 71.
  • Adam Williams…..sailor
    • Adam Berg, or “Adam Williams” (1922-2006) began his acting career after distinguished service in World War II as a United States Navy pilot, for which he received the Navy Cross. He was commended for his valor while operating a dive bomber off the USS Wasp in June 1944, in which he attacked a Japanese fleet oiler in the East Philippine Sea, and then ditched upon his return without suffering casualties to his crew. After returning home and pursuing an acting career, he appeared in shows like Have Gun – Will Travel, The Rifleman, Bonanza, and Perry Mason, among others as well as two episodes of The Twilight Zone (“The Hitch-Hiker” and “A Most Unusual Camera“). He appeared in films like The Big Heat (1953) and The Proud and Profane (1956), however he was perhaps best known for playing the role of a henchman named Valerian, working alongside James Mason, in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959). Hitchcock included a little in-joke in the film in which Williams can be seen hiding from the police as a gardener at the Townsend estate brandishing a pair of shears. This is an amusing reference to Williams’s earlier role as a serial killer who used gardening shears in the film Without Warning! (1952), a role that typecast him as a villain for much of his career. He was married twice and had at least several children. He died in December 2006 of lymphoma at the age of 84.
    • For this episode, it was appropriate that Adam Williams was cast as a sailor due to his service in World War II as a highly decorated Naval fighter pilot.
  • Lew Gallo…..mechanic
    • Lewis “Lew” Gallo (1928-2000) was born in Mount Kisco, New York and served as an Army infantryman during the Korean War. He was a graduate of Ithaca College. After returning from service, he acted in television shows like Rawhide, Dr. Kildare, Lost in Space, Gunsmoke, Perry Mason, Get Smart, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Time Tunnel, and others. He was perhaps best known for his role as Major Joseph Cobb on the 1960s ABC World War II series Twelve O’Clock High. He appeared in three episodes of The Twilight Zone (“The Hitch-Hiker,” “The Rip Van Winkle Caper,” and “On Thursday We Leave for Home“). He married television producer Lillian Gallo, and they had two children. In later life, he founded the golf tournament for the Entertainment Industry Foundation. Gallo died in June 2000 in Los Angeles, the day before his 72nd birthday. He received Ithaca College’s Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in 2001.
  • Russ Bender…..counterman
    • Russ Bender (1910-1969) was a former writer of detective stories who turned to acting after World War II. He appeared in small uncredited roles in films like The War of the Worlds (1953) and he appeared in a string of B-movies like Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957) and The Amazing Colossal Man (1957). He was known for being a balding, stocky character actor, usually seen as a western lawmen or as a military officer or scientist in low-budget science fiction films of the 1950s and 1960s. He appeared in television shows like Gunsmoke, Rawhide, Perry Mason, Sugarfoot, Maverick, The Untouchables, Cheyenne, Laramie, My Three Sons, The Virginian, Mission: Impossible, Green Acres, Bonanza, and others. He appeared in three episodes of The Twilight Zone (“The Hitch-Hiker,” “The Fugitive,” and “On Thursday We Leave For Home“). He died in August 1969 in Hollywood.
  • George Mitchell…..gas station attendant
    • George Mitchell (1905-1972) was born in Larchmont, New York. He had minor parts in films like 3:10 To Yuma (1957), and Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) among others. He appeared on many television shows like Playhouse 90, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, One Step Beyond, Gunsmoke, Have Gun – Will Travel, Laramie, Perry Mason, The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Dark Shadows, Bonanza, The Time Tunnel, Land of the Giants, The Virginian, and others. He appeared in four episodes of The Twilight Zone (“The Hitch-Hiker,” “Execution,” “Jess-Belle,” “Ring-A-Ding Girl“). He was married twice and had four children. Mitchell acted in several films and television episodes with his second wife, Katherine Squire, including as an elderly couple in the Jack Nicholson film Ride in the Whirlwind (1966). Toward the end of his career, Mitchell appeared in the Robert Wise film The Andromeda Strain (1971) which was based on the novel of the same name by Michael Crichton.
  • Eleanor Audley…..Mrs. Whitney (voice on the telephone, uncredited)
    • Eleanor Zellman, or “Eleanor Audley” (1905-1991) made her acting debut on Broadway in the 1920s and pivoted to radio in the 1940s. Her distinctive voice allowed her to find work as a voice actress in radio and animation. She is primarily remembered as the first actress to voice Lady Tremaine in Cinderella (1950) and Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty (1959), two of the most memorable Disney villains. She appeared in television shows like The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, Mister Ed, Green Acres, I Love Lucy, Have Gun – Will Travel, Peyton Place, Wagon Train, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and My Three Sons, among others. She worked with Disney again toward the end of her career when she voiced voice psychic medium Madame Leota for the Haunted Mansion rides at Disneyland and Walt Disney World. The character Leota is depicted as a ghost who communicates with the living (other actresses have since voiced the character). Her character of Madame Leota received its own tombstone in Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles in 2001. The epitaph reads: “Dear sweet Leota, beloved by all. In regions beyond now, but having a ball.” After years of poor health, Audley died of respiratory failure in 1991 in North Hollywood. She never married.
    • In the final scene of this episode of The Twilight Zone, her unmistakable voice can be heard on the telephone as “Mrs. Whitney.”
  • Mitzi McCall…..waitress (uncredited)
    • Mitzi Steiner, or “Mitzi McCall” (1930-2024) was a voice-over actress who worked on many animated series throughout her long career including The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Scooby-Doo, Darkwing Duck, Hey Arnold!, Cow and Chicken, Captain Planet and the Planeteers, The Wild Thornberrys, American Dad!, and many others including video games like Spider-Man 3. She was also the voice of Glyptodon in the movie Ice Age (2002). She was married in the early 1950s before she met her second husband in 1959, a fellow actor named Charlie Brill, on the Jerry Lewis Comedy Workshop. They appeared together as a duo on the Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964 the same night that The Beatles made their U.S. debut on the show. That night they performed a heavily abbreviated version of their comedy act to an impatient audience of Beatles fans. They both later described how the appearance derailed their career for the subsequent six months or so. Mitzi and Charlie had one daughter together. Mitzi McCall died in 2024 at the age of 93.
    • Mitzi McCall had a scene with Inger Stevens that was apparently shot but never included in the final cut of this episode.
  • Dwight Townsend…..highway flag man (uncredited)
    • Dwight Townsend (1933-2016) has one acting credit listed on his IMDB page, which his uncredited appearance in this episode of The Twilight Zone. He was married twice and had one child. He apparently went by the nickname “Froggy.” I was unable to track down further details on his life.

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The Twilight Zone Trivia:

• “The Hitch-Hiker” was actually dramatized on the radio four separate times –on November 17, 1941 for The Orson Welles Show on CBS Radio; on September 2, 1942 for the anthology program Suspense; then on October 15, 1942 on Philip Morris Playhouse; and finally on June 21, 1942 for The Mercury Summer Theater on the Air. Each dramatization features Orson Welles as the lead. Click here to read my review of the radio play for “The Hitch-Hiker.”
• Composer Bernard Herrmann (and ex-husband of writer Lucille Fletcher) completed the score for the original radio production of the “The Hitch-Hiker” and elements of it were re-used in this episode.
• Apparently, it was one of these four radio productions that left an impression on a young Rod Serling and led him to direct Buck Houghton to purchase the rights to the story.
• Rod Serling changed the original main character’s name in the radio play script from Ronald Adams (a man) to Nan Adams (a woman) named after his daughter Anne’s nickname (“Nan”). Serling changed the main character’s gender because he thought a female lead would add a level of terror to the story. Serling used the name “Nan” again in another Twilight Zone episode: “A Passage for Trumpet.”
• Apparently, Lucille Fletcher was not consulted about the change of gender for the main character in The Twilight Zone episode and she was displeased.
• Alfred Hitchcock attempted to purchase the rights to this story/radio play from Lucille Fletcher for an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents but she turned down his offer of $2,000, even though she later sold it for the same price to The Twilight Zone.
• “The Hitch-Hiker” was the only Twilight Zone episode derived directly from a radio play.
• Apparently, Rod Serling completed this script in just six hours according to a 1960 press release.
• The first day of filming was the railroad crossing scene. Filming began at 7:45am. This required significant logistics on behalf of the crew. Two motorcycle officers from the Los Angeles Police Department were on hand to temporarily stem the flow of traffic (paid $3.78 per hour), along with a Los Angeles County fireman (who was paid $24 for his time). Permission to film on the tracks was granted by a representative of the S&P Railroad named Raymond Fansett (according to Martin Grams, Jr. in his reference book). The second scene filmed on the first day was the scene at the service station where Nan sees the hitch-hiker in the mirror. This was filmed at the Enchanto Turnoff Chevron Station in Agoura, California (Cornell Corner). This required two Ventura County Sheriff’s officers and a $100 payment to the proprietor of the store for his temporary loss of business. The rest of the first day was devoted to various shots along the highway. Two California Highway Patrol officers were on-hand to direct traffic. Some of these scenes were shot along the mountain roads in the Angeles National Forest, including the bridge near Big Tujunga Creek and the Mill Creek tunnel which she drives through. These shots were continued on the second day of filming before the crew returned to the MGM lot where the scenes of Nan and the sailor were filmed inside a mock-up of her car. The third and final day of filming was on several MGM lots to shoot the remaining scenes. The last thing Inger Stevens did before leaving on the third day was record her inner monologue narrative (they recorded her on two separate tracks, one as a back-up).
• The number of Nan’s mother’s residence is “Trafalgar 10498.”
• A few signs in the first gas station window advertise “Rayton Batteries,” “Tubeless Tires,” and “Gorman Plugs.” Later in the episode, the rest stop sign reads “Service Station – John Thompson Prop.” (“Prop.” being short for Proprietor). This was an inside joke since John Thompson was one of the art directors for The Twilight Zone.
• The gas station where Nan meets the sailor is the same gas station used in “Walking Distance.” Even the “Lubrication” sign is the exact same one.
• Inger Stevens’s character Nan drives a 1959 Mercury Montclair in this episode (with a fake New York license plate that was used in the 1959 film It Started with a Kiss).
• Considering her character Nan’s anxiety about death in this episode, in a dark bit of irony, actress Inger Stevens also suffered from considerable anxiety about her own mortality after having survived many near-death experiences like a bout of carbon monoxide poisoning, a plane crash, and other tragedies. She also attempted suicide several times. In fact, she attempted suicide on New Year’s Day 1959 (about a year before this episode aired). As mentioned above, she later died of barbiturate poisoning in 1970. Her death was ruled a suicide.
• Ida Lupino (who starred in The Twilight Zone episode “The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine” and also later directed the episode “The Masks“) became the first woman to direct a film noir called The Hitch-Hiker (1953) which starred Edmond O’Brien, Frank Lovejoy, and William Talman. However, it was unrelated to either Lucille Fletcher’s radio play or this episode of the same name.
• This episode was remade for television in April 1997 called “End of the Road” starring Nora Rickert as Nan Adams.

Click here to read my review of the radio play for “The Hitch-Hiker.”

Click here to return to my survey of The Twilight Zone series.