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The Stream Queen watches Suspense (1913) & The Hitch-hiker (1953)
12 Plays3 years ago
In this episode of The Stream Queen, we take it back to where it all begun. One of the earliest credited female directors in Hollywood , Lois Weber; and the director that inspired our quest to find and talk about films directed by women, Ida Lupino.
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Transcript
Introduction to the New Season
00:00:00
Speaker
to all the ladies I am big it's the pictures that got small
00:00:33
Speaker
Happy New Year, everybody.
Purpose of Stream Queen
00:00:36
Speaker
Welcome to 2022. Um...
00:00:40
Speaker
I just want to welcome you back to the Stream Queen. You know what we do here? We watch films by female directors, and I just discuss it with my friends. That's what we're about.
Host Introduction and Excitement
00:00:50
Speaker
I'm your host, HoppyLA2Dibo, and I'm so glad you guys have tuned in for season two of the Stream Queen.
Focus on Groundbreaking Films
00:00:56
Speaker
So without further ado, we're going to talk about two very amazing films that I have seen with
00:01:03
Speaker
my guest today and it's so important that we talk about these films because we're looking at women that really broke the glass ceiling for female directors and so we jumped into a time machine like Marty and we went back
Lois Weber's Pioneering Work
00:01:21
Speaker
in time. We went so back in time
00:01:23
Speaker
that I don't even think the first world war had even started. The first director who we will be talking about today is Lois Weber and she is the first female
00:01:38
Speaker
filmmaker to be admitted to the motion pictures director association. So that's huge. And we're talking about the early 1900s here. Like she was way ahead of her time. And we're going to go into one of her movies that she made super short. We made this a double feature because we wanted to just like
00:01:58
Speaker
compare the two styles, how things had just progressed from having this woman who basically just set the tone for female directors, and just kind of like her legacy basically. So we're gonna be talking about Louis
00:02:15
Speaker
Why can't I say her name? Lois Weber. I want to say Lois. Lois Weber, may she rest in peace, and her short film, Suspense. And then we'll follow it by the amazing Ida Lupino, actress, producer, director, screenwriter, all things. So just to give you an overview of who Lois Weber was,
00:02:42
Speaker
She was an American silent film actress, screenwriter, producer, director, all things, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Probably the most important female director in American film industry and the most prolific in the silent film era. She made between 200 to 400 films. Only a few have been preserved and one of which we were watching today. We watched, at least recently,
00:03:10
Speaker
IMDB credits her as a director on 135 films. 135 films. This girl did not sleep. And she's also one of the first directors to experiment with sound. And one of the first American female directors to own her own film studio in 1917. 1917. I just want you to understand what was going on in that period of time. We did not have women's rights.
00:03:39
Speaker
like a lot of people dying from very preventable illnesses um i can't even think about all the things that are happening in 1917 or 1913 or 1900s but this is such an achievement um and we'll go into more detail about Italy Lupino but i just want to introduce our guests because this dude
Guest Host Introduction
00:04:00
Speaker
is amazing. He is a writer, he is a producer, he is a director, a video editor, and a whole bunch of other things, but my favorite title that I have for him is he is also my husband. So I want to introduce to you Gregory Clark. Hey Greg, how's it going?
00:04:22
Speaker
Oh, you know, pretty good. Pretty good. Pretty good for a Tuesday. I mean, I don't know that I can live up to the hype, to the hype entrance. Well, now you have to. I feel like this is like, you know, a Rocky movie. And I just had like my own hype man announcing me to come in. That's what I'm here for. Just to hype you up and hope that you arise to the occasion. Like the breads that you made during the pandemic.
00:04:52
Speaker
Um, I think it's, I just want to let you guys know it's so great to have Greg on here because he has been behind the scenes editing all of season one of The Stream Queen and I could not have made that without him. So the intro, um, music and editing that you hear, all of that stuff is done by Greg. So if anybody out there wants to hire my husband for some editing work,
00:05:16
Speaker
Here's just a little bit of a hype for this guy because he is incredibly talented So yeah, I'm gonna cut all that out No, don't cut it out So welcome to my show, my love How are you? Hello. Hello. I'm doing okay. We barely had time to speak before we started this. I literally had just walked in the door and
00:05:40
Speaker
from coming home from work. And I put you straight to work. She goes, go set up the studio. So yeah, we are now set up. And ready to
Impact of Lois Weber's Films
00:05:51
Speaker
go. And ready to go. We're in different rooms because we do not have a two microphone system yet. But yeah, I'm excited to be on here. I'm excited to be talking about these two wonderful filmmakers, these two trailblazers.
00:06:09
Speaker
And yeah, especially Lois Weber because I was unfamiliar with her despite my fascination with silent film era and the early years of filmmaking. She had not popped up on my radar before. So this was a real learning experience. And did you, I know you went to film school. So is this something like, did you guys watch any films from the silent era?
00:06:37
Speaker
We did. It should come as no surprise to anybody who has taken a film studies course that the films from the silent era that they pick out are very male-centric. It was a lot of Chaplin. It was D.W. Griffith.
00:06:58
Speaker
I went to college in the early 2000s, so it was still in that era where it was just, here's Birth of a Nation. Yes, it's racist as hell, but you're going to watch it and you're going to appreciate it. Which is fascinating to me because as I was reading up on Lois Weber, one of the things that she made cool before anyone even did was interracial casting.
Innovative Techniques by Lois Weber
00:07:25
Speaker
Yes.
00:07:28
Speaker
something else I discovered. Yeah, and special effects. Like she was kind of pioneering, aside from just being a woman in her era directing movies and having her own studio and just being a general badass, she was also creating all of these firsts. Like the devil couldn't hold her back.
00:07:50
Speaker
Yeah, no, I think the thing that she gets credited with the most is being really one of the first to utilize a split screen, not just as an effect, but as a storytelling device. And that just on its face is like,
00:08:13
Speaker
you watch it and it's, uh, cause she uses it in suspense. There's, I think there's three, three scenes that use split screen. And I think, uh, that is really cool to behold because it is, uh, something that had to be done by hand, completely by hand. Uh, they had to layer the negatives on top of each other. They had to hand draw their own mats. Um,
00:08:43
Speaker
There was there was no assistance of any kind. It was all just what you can figure out to make it work. And so to have that and the fact that the split screen moments like sync up.
00:08:56
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you know, she's on the phone, he cuts the phone line, and it's like all in this split screen. And then like her husband on the other end of the line is like, hello, hello. You know, nowadays you watch that and you might be tempted to go, well, that's super basic. But you have to remember that this is 20-ish years after the Lumiere brothers
00:09:24
Speaker
unveiled their cinemagraph at a carnival and so we are literally we are literally in the proto like the pro magnum years yeah like the the early dawn of man section of 2001 era for filmmaking and so for them to use what is actually a pretty sophisticated storytelling device
00:09:48
Speaker
and to use it in a way that is immediately, you know, this film was made almost 110 years ago, and it is just immediately, you know, the communication could not be any more clear as to what she's trying to communicate. Yeah. So, but to circle back, I know I'll go in and preface this that I tend to be very long-winded in my answers.
00:10:15
Speaker
But to circle back, no, we did not talk about any female filmmakers from the silent era when I was in college.
Educational Gaps in Film Schools
00:10:22
Speaker
Which is a shame. It was E.W. Griffith, Chaplin, Demille, and Murnau. Yeah. And I also noted that back then, she wasn't the only female director. There was also the French director, Alice Guy, who, you know,
00:10:42
Speaker
I hopefully we get to watch her stuff if it's available soon, but she was another one back in the day who was also kind of just laying out the groundwork for future film directors, female film directors, or just any director really. So it is a shame that, you know, we do, the film schools really do have a long way to go in terms of really just creating an equal footing when it comes to
00:11:07
Speaker
showing that women contributed to this industry far earlier than would be made to believe. Particularly when you have someone like Lois who's already defying standards and bringing in innovation in a way that we still use today to tell stories.
00:11:30
Speaker
Um, she didn't get the credit she was due. I mean, I know that, you know, places like, you know, the turn of classic movies and criteria channel definitely do their best to really like bring this to the public's attention. But when you're going to school and you're learning the history of film, you also kind of want to see that appreciation in the classroom as well as outside of the classroom. Yeah. Um, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, uh,
00:11:57
Speaker
I think, I mean, obviously I'm not in a film school right now, so I don't know how much it's progressed since 2005. Hopefully more. Which is a date that feels more and more far away with every passing moment. But yeah, I can't think of a director before
00:12:21
Speaker
Ida Lupino that was even mentioned. I think Heavy Lamar, who wasn't really a director, but she was a producer.
00:12:36
Speaker
was a scientist who did the early work to help create bluetooth, which is what we're using right now. It's heavy, darling. It's heavy. It's heavy, darling. But yeah, I think before her
00:12:57
Speaker
or Lena Wertmuller, who was the first female Best Director Oscar nominee. But that was 1976. That was even a rocky one.
Summary and Influence of Suspense
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Speaker
That is that like Lois Webster 1913 suspense.
00:13:14
Speaker
Lena Wertmuller, 1976, like there's 60 plus years. And given how long people lived back then, that was a whole lifetime. Yeah, someone could be born, grow up, grow old and die between Lois Weber and Lena Wertmuller getting that Oscar nomination and then no
00:13:38
Speaker
uh no woman wanted won the oscar uh until you know of course uh holy shit katherine bigelow katherine bigelow wow wait i brought you on here to do film stuff why aren't you like remembering these names hey look man like i said i walked in the door and you took the microphone in my face do my podcast with me honey well it's like i haven't even
00:14:09
Speaker
Let me give the audience a brief summary of suspense. It's a short 10-minute film and we're lucky enough to have a subscription to Criterion Channel. So this is the bit where I'd have a little Criterion Channel. They're so great and you should definitely sign up for their streaming service and please pay us for this brief advertising that I have done right here very badly.
00:14:29
Speaker
Um, but yeah, it's a 10 minute film. It's basically about this woman and her baby in a house. Her house keeper has quit on her and says she will not stand living in this house that is full of loneliness. And she walks out.
00:14:45
Speaker
basically leaving the key under the doormat and this woman leaves him in the middle of nowhere and her husband is at work you know earning the bacon while she's at home taking care of the baby and and what they call a tramp which i guess is like a homeless vagrant
00:15:04
Speaker
He's a hobo. He's a hobo. He breaks into her house and she has to basically try to get help before he breaks into the bedroom and attacks her. It's called suspense and the whole thing is in suspense. Like we were talking about earlier, just all of the tools that Lois uses.
00:15:31
Speaker
to make you feel the tension, to make you feel scared and have all of this anticipation of what's gonna happen with this woman, what's gonna happen with her baby. And by the way, she also acts in this film, as well as directing it. This woman can do it all. And so that's what the movie's about, and it's 10 minutes, and if you are out there, a little baby filmmaker, and you're like, oh my god, I wanna make a short film. If Lois Weber in 1913,
00:15:59
Speaker
can make a 10-minute film that is fully complete with all the plots and all the subplots, you too, sir, you too, ma'am, can do the same thing because you have way more tools at your disposal than she did back in the day. So that's the movie and I'm just gonna turn it over to you, Greg. What did you think about this movie? Well, I was really surprised by it. I liked
00:16:27
Speaker
Pretty much everything about it just both as a short film It does what? Unfortunately a lot of short films don't do which is express a complete thought And you know it manages to do the setting the characters the setup the problem the turn And the resolution
00:16:51
Speaker
and pretty economically and but I was I was most struck by a couple things one the fact that it's just straight-up called suspense and you know I doubt I know this wasn't the first ever quote-unquote thriller or suspense film made but I do think that it does
00:17:14
Speaker
have a lot of unspoken influence on the genre that reverberates to this day. And if you're looking for it, you can absolutely see it. There are two shots in this movie from 1913.
00:17:34
Speaker
that are directly quoted and are actually trademark shots of two other highly respected Artur filmmakers, one of which being when the husband is trying to race home in a stolen car,
00:17:50
Speaker
to save his wife from the evil homeless man, which, I mean, we'll put the politics of that aside. Just, we will grant him the, it really was another time out there.
Complex Shots and Influences on Filmmakers
00:18:09
Speaker
But as he's racing home in a stolen car to try to save his wife from unspeakable terrors,
00:18:18
Speaker
There is, he's being chased by the police because they think he's just a car thief. And there is literally the famous Steven Spielberg rearview mirror shot in this as he looks in the rearview mirror of the pre-model T buggy that he's driving. And those mirrors are like, they're round, they're small.
00:18:42
Speaker
Yeah, but like the focus is right on it and the way that they have the cop car.
00:18:50
Speaker
like just rolling right up on it, you could just replace the cop car with, you know, a semi truck from Spielberg's duel or the T-Rex from Jurassic Park. Like that shot is immediately associated with Spielberg now, but it's hard to imagine that, you know, a young Spielberg who was just consuming every film he could get his hands on, didn't see this at some point and go,
00:19:18
Speaker
I'm going to remember that. Yeah. Can we just talk about how challenging it probably was to do this shot? Because we're talking about a car tape chase and we're talking about like these cars are wheelie. I mean, think about cars from the 1900s. They don't have a top cover.
00:19:39
Speaker
They don't have brakes or seat belts, and you're in there filming... Well, they had brakes, but no seat belts. Okay, they had brakes. I just assumed they didn't have brakes, but... They had to stop somehow. Slow roll is what I'm thinking. Just take your feet off of the accelerator, and eventually your car will stop.
00:19:58
Speaker
But we're not talking about handheld cameras here that are the size of what we know today. We're not talking about your iPhones. We're talking about bulky items that she's shooting with to get this image. And I was just blown away.
00:20:15
Speaker
Yeah, no, I wish that there was some sort of behind the scenes photography of their rig on the car, because I just have this image of a camera operator with your old-timey tripod on sticks, basically balancing this car on the floorboard or the rudderboard of this car, keeping it focused on
00:20:43
Speaker
on the rearview mirror as they yell action as they're speeding down this road at going at least, you know,
00:20:52
Speaker
When I say 20, 30 miles per hour, it probably doesn't sound that fast, but when you're handling very expensive equipment and you have no way to secure your rig. Are you speaking from personal experience, Greg? Yes. I have in my Gorilla Filmmaker days hung out the back of cars with
00:21:14
Speaker
with cameras that cost a whole semester's worth of tuition. And just to get a shot because I was reckless and young. But I also had that voice in the back of my head going, please, dear God, do not drop this camera. Do not hit a bump. Please let there be no potholes. Because I'm going to go flying right out of this car. I'm going to use my body to save this camera.
00:21:40
Speaker
Well, yeah, yeah, no, like that's, that is the unspoken rule. Like if you are ever in a situation where it's your body or the camera, your body is going to take the fall every time. The camera should be saved above all else. The number one on filmmaking with no money. Um, so you mentioned like two, you mentioned two shots and one is the rugby mirror. What's the other one? The other one is when the vagrant is trying to break
00:22:06
Speaker
into the bedroom, or no, she actually moves into the bathroom and closes the door. And so he's trying to break into the bathroom to get to her. It's right out of the shining. It is 100% Kubrick did the same framing, did the same action.
00:22:25
Speaker
I think even the same board gets broken when he punches through the... The only thing different is that I think it's his fist and not an axe. And not an axe, but yeah, I saw that too and I was like, it's the shiny, here's Johnny. Exactly, exactly. So this film is directly quoted by two master filmmakers.
00:22:48
Speaker
in some of their most indelible classic films. So it's pretty much irrefutable to say that this is a highly influential movie. I also, just running back to the car chase there, I do want to give another prop to whoever the stunt driver was. Because there's one shot where this, again, this is a 1910
00:23:13
Speaker
buggy this isn't even a car this is a buggy with no power steering no real you know no like it's got a brake but it's a you know it's a hand brake and there's a shot where he fishtails at high speeds around a corner yeah and i do not know how he did that without flipping
00:23:39
Speaker
Yeah. Because the back of that car drags for a good couple feet. Yeah. Like 10 or 20 feet. If he crashed, he was going to be compressed. Yeah. No, he'd be paced. He'd be paté. Of course.
00:23:57
Speaker
So yeah, that was great. There is a really great use of, of course, silent film, silent cinema is all about the close up because they are all about using the expressions of the face to communicate how they're feeling. But there's a really great up, like top down shot of the vagrant coming up the stairs with a knife and he's staring directly into the camera. Yeah, that was so cool.
00:24:26
Speaker
And that was a really good, like I was like, if this shot was used in a film today, this would still creep me the fuck out. Oh yeah. And like just all of the, there was just so many well selected shots. For example, when he's outside and he's trying to break in and we have this bird's eye view through these slacks.
00:24:51
Speaker
um up the roof and you can just see him and it just aims the tension of like what's he gonna do and then when he finds the key under the mat and then he goes in and then going up the stairs like the use of the shots coupled with the piano, the piano music, whoof I was like this is suspenseful this is terrifying um it was just so so well done so guys don't knock silent films if you get a chance to see one
00:25:21
Speaker
go do it because, you know, they didn't have everything that we had today and they used all of the tools they could to tell captivating stories. Yeah. I mean, I'm always been a big proponent of going back and looking at where we came from. Um, not just from like an anthropological standpoint, but from an artistic standpoint, because, uh, like the silent film era
00:25:47
Speaker
as far as framing techniques, staging techniques, blocking techniques, camera movements, they had it all figured out. They literally wrote the book. And there's a sense today that it's so old and it's so from a completely other era than today's filmmaking culture and climate.
00:26:16
Speaker
that it might not have anything to offer a young filmmaker and I could not disagree more. I think everyone should go back and look at those silent films and interrogate their politics. We could definitely spend a good 20 plus more minutes just talking about how wrong-headed it is to say, here's a guy who's down on his luck and
00:26:44
Speaker
he's like at the first opportunity he's going to become a murdering, raping monster. Yeah, that was a bridge too far, I think, but at the time, it was just shorthand for, oh, here's an outsider you can't trust.
00:27:02
Speaker
Okay, so let's move on to Ida Lupino Because I think that her work really is gonna blend well with Lois Weber's suspense now before we jump into the film that we watched Directed written and directed by Ida Lupino. I just want to give you just an overview of just how amazing this woman is so one of the reasons I
00:27:29
Speaker
picked her and picked this movie is because this movie was one of the reasons I even realized the women were making film prior to the 1990s. And I was just, I
Ida Lupino's Role in Social Issues
00:27:40
Speaker
was shooketh. I was like, there's so much suspense. And it's an incredible film to watch. And I just, I wanted to share with you guys as a reason why this podcast exists, why when I created film fatales as an in-person movie club,
00:27:57
Speaker
We started watching movies as far back as we could go and Ida Lupino was was an actress Who then became a director and a producer and she has directed eight films She was British but became a US citizen in 1948 and it's just one of the prominent female filmmakers of 1950s in Hollywood She had her own production company
00:28:25
Speaker
She co-wrote and produced so many amazing films with socially impactful messages. She talked about unwanted pregnancy. She talked about rape in her film Outrage. She tackled issues of women trapped in social conventions.
00:28:41
Speaker
is just amazing to see somebody who defied the thoughts and values of the time to really talk about what was important. And one of my favorite stories about Ida Lupino is how she got suspended for refusing to play poorly written roles.
00:28:58
Speaker
Or just being cast in things that she thought was beneath her and she was suspended so many times that she spent a lot of times of the studio just sitting around twiddling her thumbs and As the badass queen that she is she said you know what I'm gonna see what's happening behind the camera And so she started
00:29:15
Speaker
you know, watching the filmmaking process, the editing process, and eventually kicked off her own production company with her husband, making films that she wanted to see, films that she wanted to be in. And, you know, just thinking about it now, there's a lot of female filmmakers, actresses, directors who came down the same path, got really frustrated with Hollywood and the stories Hollywoods were telling about women.
00:29:41
Speaker
and wanted to do their own.
Introduction to Ida Lupino's Hitchhiker
00:29:44
Speaker
And so, all hail Ida Lupino for kind of creating the template. Hail Ida. Hail Ida. For creating the template for which a lot of directors these days are following. So our movie today, with Ida at the helm, is Hitchhiker. I don't know if anyone's ever heard of this. Have you heard of this, Greg?
00:30:08
Speaker
I actually had because when we, before we were married, but when we were dating, you showed this to me because you were like, did you know that there was a female filmmaker and then I gave that face. And then I gave that face. And she did noirs.
00:30:27
Speaker
And you know how much I love my noir films. And I know, yes. Yes, we both love noir films. So yes, I actually had watched this a few years ago. And we watched it again last night. My thoughts on it haven't really changed a whole lot. It's a pretty impressive directorial debut that she
00:30:56
Speaker
sort of willed into existence. Because I think one of the things to mention in between Lois Weber and Ida Lupino, there were several female directors who had a shot in Hollywood, but they were almost all uniformly given, you know, romance movies. Or, you know, women trying to make it until they find a man kind of movies. And Ida Lupino took a
00:31:26
Speaker
this very masculine genre, noir, which was all the rage then. And she was like, I'm going to make a movie with no female characters in it. Yeah. And I'm going to show that I can do it just as good as the men. And she did. And she did. And it's a pretty, you know, the thing about most of Isla Lupino's movies that you, uh,
00:31:51
Speaker
that you watch, you have to remember that they're being made on the cheap. Like she was not being given multi-spalcon money. She was not being given Howard Hawks money. She was working for RKO at a time when RKO was no longer one of the top studios in Hollywood. They were the budget studio. And so that was the only place she could get it made. Important side note on this film,
00:32:21
Speaker
Howard Hughes, that Howard Hughes, the aviator, Leonardo DiCaprio, greenlit this movie. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. Look at you finding information. I don't know. He had just bought RKO on the cheap because they were broke. And so Howard Hughes, with his infinite oil money, bought RKO and needed a product quick. Yeah.
00:33:00
Speaker
her movie funded. And then she went off to, she had her own production company, The Filmmakers, which I think is a great production company. And honestly, even from the early 1950s, I'm surprised no one had already taken that name. Yeah, right. I know. It was like, it was just there for the taken. It was like, we're a bunch of filmmakers.
00:33:11
Speaker
to return on investment.
00:33:21
Speaker
And we need a production company name. What are we going to call ourselves? A group of collective filmmakers. The filmmakers. Starting a company. How about the filmmakers? That's it. Let's go get lunch. I love your old-timey voice. It just brings so much character to this explanation that they probably just looked in the dictionary and picked up the most efficient and effective way to describe their production company. But yeah.
00:33:49
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like Ida Lupino had...
00:33:53
Speaker
She had something to prove. She had a bone to pick, basically, that she could do, she could direct films, but she wasn't gonna be limited to just doing women's stories or female stories or just stories about love, which is what everyone assumes women gravitate towards. Yeah. And just so you know, this was her sixth film. So I have to correct myself. She did nine films.
00:34:21
Speaker
or at least nine features because one of them with this 10 but really like the one of them is like 25 minutes long we can call it 10 films but you know nine films this was her sixth feature and it's probably the most popular film that she made in terms of like recognition in terms of like just the genre and all of that
00:34:43
Speaker
Well then I have a correction to make because she only made one film directly for RKO and so that would have been her first one which I now realize I'm mistaking for On Deadly Ground. On Dangerous Ground. Dangerous Ground. Which was her fifth film.
00:35:00
Speaker
Well, what was the first one, God damn it? The first one was Not Wanted, which was about unwanted pregnancy. I thought that was Outrage. Not according to my notes, it was from 1949 and Outrage was from 1950. Okay. Either way, she was making great movies. Howard Hughes gave her her first shot.
00:35:25
Speaker
but then she struck out on her own. That's the important fact to remember. That's the important thing to take home with you ladies and gentlemen. As I get everything else wrong. So yeah, to circle back, the thing I wanted to highlight is that she is making a masculine movie in a masculine manner. This is a very tough movie and it's filled with
00:35:52
Speaker
It's filled with, you know, guys being tough and guys being hard bitten and there's this criminal and he's, you know, just the absolute worst, the scum of the earth. And like even the angles and the lighting and everything, it just says, you know, he's a bad guy.
00:36:08
Speaker
Yeah, just the cinematography of this movie looks like it wants to mug you in a back alley. It did mug me in the back alley twice, I feel like. And just for the audience, so Hitchhiker is a 1953, it's basically a road movie. And I guess you can guess what happens because it's in the title, Hitchhiker. And basically you have these two guys, Roy and Gail, who are going on a fishing trip. They left their wives at home, like good old men.
00:36:38
Speaker
didn't tell them where they were going they didn't tell them where they were going they were gonna go all the way to Mexico mm-hmm and then on the way they decided to pick up this guy who looks like his car is broken down but it turns out he's a criminal that's on the run he's killed so many people they clearly were not listening to the news that day because otherwise why would they pick him up
00:36:57
Speaker
um you know they pick him up and then it's just kind of the the tension of uh being held hostage um of not knowing if you're gonna die any minute and just kind of he's dragging them through um like california and arizona or wherever um and in the
00:37:17
Speaker
And into Mexico, because he's hoping that once he gets to Mexico, he can be free. And so it's basically just the interaction with these three guys in a car and sometimes out in the desert.
Atmosphere and Storytelling in Hitchhiker
00:37:31
Speaker
And, you know, one of the reasons I picked this to match with Lois Weber's suspense is, you know, that 11 minute
00:37:38
Speaker
movie on suspense is just extended here because you are constantly on edge throughout this movie. Like she picked an amazing bad guy who apparently has like one sleepy eye that never closes. It's a birth defect. So even when they're camping out and he's like, I'm gonna, we're gonna sleep here for the night. One of his eyes is open. He literally has one eye on you and you don't know if he's asleep.
00:38:05
Speaker
or if he's awake. And so you're sitting there and you're like, well, I don't really want to try to escape because I don't know if he's actually asleep, particularly if he doesn't snore. Like, how do you know? And he has a gun on you the whole time. So, you know, this is 53. And like Greg, like you said, it's it's from a
00:38:23
Speaker
it's a women just say, you know what, I can play with the big boys in noir, same as you. And I always shooketh when I came out of this, because I was like, yeah, this would, you could remake this today, and it would still be just as good. Yeah, and I think, I think the fact that she was sort of playing in a low budget, you know, area, gave her a lot of allowance to be experimental.
00:38:52
Speaker
She does a lot of things here that would become very standard once filmmaking gets a little bit more indie. She plays fast and loose with her cuts. There's a couple conversations where it's obviously that the actors are just sort of riffing on each other.
00:39:17
Speaker
And overall, it's just a really solid, I mean, it's a short movie. It's 70 minutes in and out. Yeah, and she tells you that like in the front credits. She was like, the next 70 minutes are going to be stressful. That's basically what it comes down to. She was like, hold on to your panties, ladies. But yeah, I mean, one of the one of the hallmarks of a good director is economical storytelling. And this is the definition of economical because there is
00:39:47
Speaker
barely an hour, just over an hour's worth of film here, but it tells a complete story. You get a good sense of these two friends and how much they mean to each other. You get a sense of how villainous and evil this hitchhiker character is.
00:40:08
Speaker
you know, they go through all these different scenarios where they're, they're powerless. Like, I think she really plays up to that angle that these are two men who in their normal lives are, you know, the heads of their household. They work blue collar jobs. Yeah, one of them owns a garage.
00:40:29
Speaker
Yeah. I forget what the other guy's job was. Like these aren't like soft boys from the city who, you know, have never been in a scrap in their life. Each one of these guys individually, one on one, no gun, could probably take this guy. Oh yeah.
00:40:46
Speaker
but he's got the gun and they don't. And so that completely upends the power dynamic. And she really, she really emphasizes that, that these are tough guys, but they are powerless and how they react to suddenly being rendered powerless.
00:41:03
Speaker
and uh and it kind of it kind of breaks one of the characters because you know he's like he he's in the desert sees a plane going by and he's yelling at it and he just falls apart and starts sobbing
00:41:17
Speaker
Um, because he's been put in a situation that he's never been in before, where he isn't taking care of the problem, where he isn't in charge. And, you know, the, the bad guy, um, Emmett Meyers, what a name, um, even
00:41:33
Speaker
You know, even says leave him alone. He's praying because you know while he's on the floor Literally crying that he might never get out of this And also what a what us just straight-up bastard. Oh, yeah Like I get it. He's a fugitive. He's on the run. He's a remorseless killer and all that but he really takes some pleasure in fucking with Oh, yeah, he toyed with them like that scene where he
00:41:56
Speaker
He tells, I think it's either Gil to shoot the bottle out of the hands of his friend, Roy. He's just standing. He's telling Roy to move it closer to his head. I love this scene because, for one, you kind of see the sweat coming down Gil's face. He is like, what if I kill my friend?
00:42:17
Speaker
like on accident like what if that happens and he's just so scared and the way does she even does that is you know she has the camera lens looking through the spy hole of the gun i'm probably using the wrong terminology here because i don't have the sights thank you um and and you see it kind of move from the bottle to the head um it's as if you are the one holding the gun and you're just like oh my god he's gonna pull the trigger and this guy's head's gonna blow off and he will never be able to live with himself
00:42:49
Speaker
It's him trying to keep his hand steady. He's not deliberately aiming it at his friend's head. He's trying to keep the steady in the way that she does the rocking of the sights. And you don't know when he's going to pull the trigger, if he's going to time it right.
00:43:04
Speaker
Exactly. And that goes on for like maybe five minutes. Like the whole, the egging on of Emmett to Gil, the tension, like she just cuts between these different, their faces. And you're just like, somebody please pull this trigger. I'm tired of watching this go down.
00:43:22
Speaker
It's too much. So yeah, it is quite a lot. And she, another thing that I love about this movie is just how well she plays with light. You know, one of the most amazing scenes is when they pick up Emmett and he gets into the back seat and it's pitch black until, I think it's either Gil Arroy offers him a cigarette and all you see from his appearance is the gun.
00:43:50
Speaker
coming out of the shadow and then he eventually leans out of the shadow and you just see the light frame the natural just frame his face and oh my gosh it just enhances just how diabolical this person is um that he just he just lurks in the shadows he just lurks in the shadows um can you tell i love noir films can you can you tell can you tell
00:44:14
Speaker
Yeah, I watch them like at least once a week. So yeah, like just highly encourage y'all to watch it. What were some of your favorite scenes, Greg?
Ida Lupino's Innovative Techniques
00:44:26
Speaker
Well, the bottle, like the little, I guess, William Tell scene, I guess you could say. That one, like you mentioned, when they first pick him up and he's obscured in shadow until he shows his hand, or his gun, or specifically.
00:44:48
Speaker
I also, I really liked the scene in the restaurant or diner, the little place that they stop in with all the Mexican people in it. And it's one of those moments where, because earlier they stopped at a grocery store, at a corner store, gas station, whatever. And he says something to like a little girl and
00:45:18
Speaker
You know, the hitchhiker is like, what did you say? Because he doesn't speak Spanish, which I was like, you've been to Mexico before, and you've planned to make your escape in Mexico. It's like, how is this going to work? At least a little bit of Spanish. Yes. But anyway, like just the way that the people, the community notices that something is up.
00:45:46
Speaker
uh the way she communicates that uh almost non-verbally yeah um i really liked um we were also joking last night that ida lupino doesn't utilize subtitles oh yeah no uh for the spanish speaking portions yeah there's like a whole scene in spanish and she's just like y'all just gonna have to figure it out yeah i mean again it's economical it's just good visual storytelling that even if like
00:46:12
Speaker
trusting that even if your audience doesn't speak the language, they'll be able to use the cues of what's happening to like piece it together. But yeah, we were laughing about it last night because, you know, there's this whole stupid attempt at a controversy around the new West Side Story, Steven Spielberg's West Side Story adaptation.
00:46:33
Speaker
and how he doesn't use subtitles in the Spanish-speaking portions. And even then, he holds your hand a little bit by having them repeat what they're saying in Spanish English, like one or two lines later. And this was 53 and then today. Yeah, this was almost 70 years ago. You know what I say to those people? Get over yourself.
00:46:54
Speaker
Yeah. Get Rosetta Stone. Yeah. And I don't even really speak Spanish. I speak a very, very mucha poquito. Mucha poquito. I say you've clearly shown how little Spanish you speak. And I was following it without a problem.
00:47:19
Speaker
yeah uh those were those were my favorite parts also again like i remarked last night uh i just like how uh the the story resolves itself and there is no denouement denouement um there is no wrap up it is like the thing resolves they're safe
00:47:38
Speaker
the end title card we're out yep we're out you know they caught him it's all good um okay so um yeah i don't know that there's much else to say about this film it was literally 70 minutes and we don't want to take anything else away from it um you can probably find it on criteria no actually it's on amazon prime i should know it is public domain so it's available every
00:48:01
Speaker
It's available everywhere. So go watch it. Go see what old films from the 50s directed by a woman looks like because it kicked things off for me emotionally, spiritually, mentally, all the things.
00:48:17
Speaker
So yeah, you know, again, I'd like to thank you, Greg, for just chatting with me about this movie as a filmmaker and just a film aficionado. I feel like you brought something totally different to it and I hope you guys really enjoyed it.
00:48:32
Speaker
And yeah, stay tuned for more of the movies that we'll be talking about. I'm so excited for season two for you guys to listen to our podcast of the films that we've been watching lately. I'm not going to spoil it for y'all. You're just going to have to subscribe to my channel.
00:48:48
Speaker
And then you'll then you'll get like the alert. I think I think it sends an alert. I don't know how these things work. But yeah, you know, again, you know, follow us on Instagram and yeah, just keep listening, keep supporting. We love y'all and peace out. This is your Stream Queen.