The Golden Age Of Hollywood
The Top 200 Movies

143
The Wages of Fear
(Le Salaire de le peur)
Release date 22nd April 1953
Country : France/Italy
Running time : 140 mins
Genre : Thriller
Starring Yves Montand, Charles Vanel
Screenplay by Henri-Georges Clouzot from the novel by Georges Armand
Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot


The manager of a Central American oil field offers big money to anyone who will drive lorries of nitro-glycerine through the jungle. It is incredibly dangerous, will any of them make it ? 

This film possibly takes too long establishing the background to its central drama but once the characters are on the road the suspense is often unbearable. This is rivetting stuff.

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It has some claim to be the greatest suspense thriller of all time : it is the suspense not of mystery but of Damocles sword. Basil Wright, 1972

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DVD available from the Criterion Collection :
 http://www.amazon.com/

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Written content copyright Derek McLellan,2005.
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