Episode no. Season 1
Episode 16 Production code 173-3612 | Directed by Alvin Ganzer Original air date January 22, 1960 | |
 | ||
Written by Teleplay by
Rod Serling
Based on radio play by
Lucille Fletcher Featured music Stock, featuring Bernard Herrmann's score for the original radio version of "The Hitch-Hiker" | ||
"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 The Hitch-Hiker.
Contents
It is considered by some to be among the series' greatest episodes.
Plot
27 year old 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 has an accident. A mechanic puts a spare tire on her car, comments that he's surprised she survived the accident, saying "you shouldn't've called for a mechanic, somebody shoulda called for a hearse" and directs her to the nearest town to fix it properly. Just before she leaves, Nan notices a shabby and strange-looking man hitchhiking, but the mechanic doesn't 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 at several other points on her journey. She becomes increasingly frightened of him. When she sees him on the other side of a railroad crossing, she tries to drive away but becomes stuck on the tracks and nearly hit by a train. She becomes convinced that the hitchhiker is trying to kill her. She continues to drive, becoming more and more afraid, stopping only when necessary, but every time she does, the same hitchhiker is there.
She takes a side road in New Mexico, but ends up stranded when she runs out of gas. Upon reaching a gas station on foot, she is refused service as it is after hours. She's 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 to San Diego. The sailor convinces the gas station attendant to provide gas. As they drive together, discussing their mutual predicaments, she sees the hitchhiker on the road and swerves towards him. The sailor, who can't see him, questions her driving, and she admits she was trying to run over the hitchhiker. The sailor begins to fear for her sanity and leaves her.
In Arizona, Nan stops to call her mother. The woman who answers the phone says that Mrs. Adams is in the hospital; she had 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 did not survive the accident, and the hitchhiker is not a man who wants her to die, but rather the personification of death, patiently and persistently waiting for her to realize that she has been dead all along. She loses all emotion and concern, feeling empty. Nan returns to the car and looks in the vanity mirror on the visor. Instead of her reflection, she sees the hitchhiker in her place. "I believe you're going...my way?", he inquires.