The Wages of Fear (1955)

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

In a shanty town somewhere in South Africa, men come from all over the world to run away and hide. Jobs are scarce and hunger is common. They are free to walkabout but soon realise that the town is one big prison as any of the men lack money to get a ticket to fly out of here.Salvation comes in the form of an oil field fire several hundred miles away. The task is to drive two trucks packed with nitroglycerin explosives to put it out, but the roads are treacherous one nasty bump and the truck can go boom. Hopefully one of the trucks can make it through, the prize is $2000 each to any of the drivers make it to the oil field fire and deliver their cargo.Corsican Mario and the much older Jo drive the heaviest truck. Mario flirts with the waitress in the local bar. Jo is a new arrival on the run from Paris with a reputation as a gangster. However once they start their treacherous journey, Jo gets the shakes and is frightened. It is Mario who is determined to finish the journey.Director Henri-Georges Clouzot made a classic film of men putting their lives at risk for money but it is also a character study as well. Mario is at first in awe of Jo as he arrives in the small town. Jo persuades Mario to get on this venture and he will show him the ropes. When the drive begins, Mario is initially frightened but gets the upper hand and starts to bully Jo around as age has finally caught up with him and Jo is scared.The film starts off in a leisurely manner as we see these disparate group of men, bored, causing trouble at the local bar. The tension soon mounts as four of the men begin their dangerous journey.

As a kid watching TV shows and movies in The Fifties, I can't tell you how many I ran across that had nitroglycerine as part of the plot. There were at least a couple of Westerns along with straight dramas, but it didn't seem to matter the genre. A souped up hot rod carrying four quarts of nitro that just happened to be hanging around was used by the main character to destroy "The Giant Gila Monster" in a campy 1959 monster flick.Whatever the fascination with nitroglycerine, and it had to be it's unpredictability, the idea of carrying around a ton of it was the premise of this film, "The Wages of Fear". Actually, it was two trucks carrying a ton of nitro between them, I guess to heighten the drama and provide twice as much in the way of nerve shattering tension. The thing is, unlike a host of reviewers who hold the picture in the highest regard, I really didn't get a whole lot out of the movie.For starters, the first forty five minutes or so was used to introduce characters and situations that eventually had nothing to do with the outcome of the story. Yves Montand portrayed his character Mario well enough, but the guy was just a reprobate for the most part. He consistently berated the lovely saloon gal Linda (Vera Clouzot), and actually threw her in the dirt when he drove off on the mission to deliver the goods. Same thing with his partner Jo (Charles Vanel), who started the picture as one of film's ruggedest macho men, and turned into a cream puff when the going got tough. I just didn't understand how characters would just suddenly switch their basic personas as the story progressed.Then there's the adventure on the road. Maybe I missed it, but what was the rationale for that wooden bridge turnabout that both drivers had trouble with? Was it that the size of the trucks wouldn't allow for a smooth ninety degree turn? Even so, after the first mishap with the truck driven by Bimba (Peter van Eyck), why would Mario feel compelled to back his truck right to the very edge of the unstable platform? It didn't make sense to me.And then, showing his contempt for Jo, Mario runs him over in that manic oil pit scene. I have to admit, that was the stunner for this viewer. That scene had both actors earning their paycheck, and it rivals the clay pit scene in "The Defiant Ones" with Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis for sheer insanity, in another Fifties action flick. Both are just hellacious, you be the judge.Except for that scene, most of the rest of the story didn't hold the same amount of interest for me. When the truck with Bimba and Luigi (Folco Lulli) blew up, I thought that it would have been better served if there was a close-up of the two men in the truck hitting a rut and offering a grimace just before fading to black and then showing the explosion. That would have better sealed their fate; I had to wonder why no one thought of it.With all that, I don't mean to imply this was a terrible picture. It's watchable enough, but just doesn't seem to measure up to the accolades it's given as an IMDb Top 250 film. But that's the case for a lot of others as well, so in this case, maybe it's just me. On another day I might have seen it in an entirely different light.

I have no skill at writing reviews. I just returned from watching this film at the Port Moody Film Society. Other reviews are very good and I don't need to repeat them. I do like the way the director sets up the scenes in the decrepit town building up the characters. When the journey started with the two trucks delivering nitroglycerine to an oil site, I was virtually tied to my seat. I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. I missed some of the dialogue because of the intensity of the film. I highly recommend this film, but I do not recommend it for the weak of heart. My heart is still beating higher than normal and the film ended over an hour ago. I gave this film a 10 without any reservation.

There's not much else to add to what others have written about this superb thriller, which reminded me of another cracker, Ice Cold In Alex. If getting half crushed by a jeep and then almost drowning in quicksand is bad, imagine getting your bones broken by a lorry and then engulfed in crude oil. Vera Clouzot is stunning and all the guys are perfectly seedy, desperate and selfishHowever, don't believe anyone who tells you that Friedkin's 70s remake Sorcerer is its equal or even superior, it doesn't come halfway close. For anyone to survive this hell is a travesty and the explanations of how the protagonists came to this pretty pass are downright contrived.