Stars: Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Peter Van Eyck, Vera Clouzot, Folco Lulli, William Tubbs

Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot

Summary: Four out-of-work men take the job as long distance lorry drivers transporting nitro-glycerine to a remote oil field in the South American jungle. Rivalry develops between the different drivers which is intensified by the heat and the danger. French dialogue with English subtitles.

Made two years before his slightly better known DIABOLIQUE, Clouzot's nail-biter of a suspense film is the story of four broke and desperate men stranded in Latin America. Eager for a way out of their respective situations, they accept an American oil company's impossibly dangerous offer to transport two truckloads of nitroglycerin across hazardous jungle terrain. Remade by William Friedkin as SORCERER in 1977.

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In 1953, before any American studio exec used the phrase "high concept", Henri-George Clouzot's The Wages of Fearboasted a premise so literally explosive that audiences were excited before they got into the theatres. With an oil-fire burning out of control deep in the South American jungle, two lorryloads of highly unstable nitro-glycerin have to be driven through miles of unstable terrain littered with dangerous turns, crumbling planks, falling rocks and mediocre hardtop. One good jolt will vaporise truck, nitro, drivers and a substantial swathe of the countryside, so the company recruits desperate souls among the loser tramps who loiter around the nowhere town of Las Piedras, begging for any kind of work.

On the road, Clouzot stages a string of unforgettable sequences: one stretch of badly paved track can only be crossed by driving at under six miles an hour or over 40; a mountain turn requires that the trucks back out onto a rickety, rotten wooden structure; a 50-ton boulder has fallen into the road, and one of the drivers calmly drains a litre of nitro into his thermos to blow it up, only remembering when the fuse is lit that this will rain pebbles all over the countryside and a few good hits on the cargo will set it off. This is perhaps as great a mix of action-adventure and contest as The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and still a textbook example of sustained suspense.

On the DVD:The print is in great shape, though the image is a little soft; the menu has a clever explosive aspect and uses the same vintage artwork as the sleeve cannily combined with a snippet. There are trailers for both Wagesand Clozuot's other masterpiece, Les Diaboliques, as well as biographies of the principal cast, eight stills and three posters.--Kim Newman

Main Language:	French
Region:	Region 0
Special Features:	Original Theatrical Trailer, Les Diaboliques Original Trailer, Stills Gallery, Poster Gallery, Cast And Crew Biographies
Subtitles:	English
Year:	1952
Release Date:	January 21, 2002
Runtime:	147 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	O P T D 005
Keywords:	Action, Fear, Subtitled, General, French, Le, La, Adventure, De, Wages, Salaire, Peur, Aka
Genre:	Action/Adventure