What happens
Ronald Adams, a young driver, sets out from Brooklyn for California in his Buick. Along the route he keeps seeing the same thin, drab hitchhiker carrying a cheap overnight bag, always appearing at the roadside where he least expects him. Orson Welles introduces the Suspense episode The Hitch-Hiker, first broadcast on September 2, 1942, on the Columbia Network. Adams grows increasingly unnerved as the figure reappears in town after town, and he becomes desperate for reassurance. The story is told in his own voice as he recounts the trip, describing his fear and his attempts to make sense of what he sees.
Route 66 and other highways across the United States, from Brooklyn through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico, 1942
Characters: Ronald Adams, Orson Welles, Mrs. Adams, Mrs. Winnie
Listen for: Ronald Adams repeatedly spotting the same hitchhiker in the rain-spotted coat along different stretches of road, and his growing dread on each sighting
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.