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The Wages of Fear (1953)

★★★½ — The Wages of Fear (1953)

Henri-Georges Clouzot had already earned his reputation as France's answer to Hitchcock with the wartime thriller The Raven (1943) and the tense domestic noir Quai des Orfèvres (1947) before assembling this Franco-Italian co-production, loosely adapted from Georges Arnaud's 1950 novel of the same name. Shot partly on location in the Camargue region of southern France (standing in for Central America), the film runs at an unusually long 154 minutes and was trimmed significantly for its American release, where distributors were uncomfortable with its anti-American undertones regarding oil company exploitation. It won both the Palme d'Or at Cannes and the Golden Bear at Berlin in 1953, a rare double. Clouzot would follow it almost immediately with Diabolique (1955), cementing a remarkable run of form.

A-Z World Movie Tour France Set in 1950s Brazil this French language black and white film had a really interesting premise. Two trucks filled with highly explosive nitroglycerin need to be transported to the site of an oil drill fire. The main characters are varied and interesting as is the dialogue between them. There were also some very suspenseful and well shot scenes. The problem is it's too long. I think this film could have even been 30 to 60 minutes shorter and it'd have been way better. It was too bloated. The ending... was extremely annoying. I hate it when they randomly kill characters off. It made the whole thing feel completely pointless.

Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 1953 | Watched: 2025-06-22

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