THE WAGES OF FEAR — THE CRITERION COLLECTION

Welcome!

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon.

Thanks a lot acorns!

Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

 

Before making the classic shocker "Diobolique" (1955), Henri-Georges Clouzot constructed a brilliant, now classic, politically infused noir that brims with anti-corporate sentiment.

Co-written by Clouzot and Georges Arnaud, the story is set in the fictional South American dustbowl town of Las Piedras.

Four destitute men from around the world pair off in order to sell their services as drivers for $2000 to an American oil company (named "SOC"). The job: to transport two truck loads of nitroglycerine across 300 miles of treacherous road. The effort is vital to putting out an oil fire burning in a remote region.

The filmmaker introduces Yves Montand's roguish Corsican character Mario with a scene of raw sensuality between Montand and Véra Clouzot (Cluzot's wife) as Linda, a cleaning woman who spends the scene scrubbing the floor at Mario's feet. "Wages of Fear" elevated Yves Montand from the status of beloved French singer to international film star.

Georges Clouzot's attention to detail extends to things like a 10-dollar bribe that traveling Parisian Jo (Charles Vanel) pays a local customs official before meeting Mario in Las Piedras over a whistled tune that both men know. A similar organic sympathy exists between the Dutch Bimba (Peter Van Eyck) and his Italian driving partner Luigi (Folco Lulli).

The assemble-the-team plot shifts in the film's second half to an all-out adventure mission fraught with the escalating dangers caused by the road. These include giant boulders and an oil spill. Driving trucks the size of small train locomotives, the men face terrifying scenarios that compare favorably to the best CGI effects you've ever seen.

Everything in cinematographer Armand Thirard's neo-realistic compositions breathes with authenticity. "Wages of Fear" is as much about where the salary of fear originates as it is about the folly of courage that feeds upon it.