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Wages Of Fear

Rated: Exempt | Format: DVD

4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)

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Product details

Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
Classification: Exempt

Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)

ASIN: B005K0A4QA
Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 224,987 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)

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Reviews

THIS BRAND NEW DVD IS IN BLACK AND WHITE. IT IS IN THE FRENCH LANGUAGE WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES. ORIGINALLY RELEASED IN 1953, THE FILM STARS YVES MONTAND AND CHARLES VANEL. PART ROAD MOVIE, PART SUSPENSE THRILLER, THE PLOT IS HIGH-TENSION SIMPLICITY ITSELF. IN THE SOUTH AMERICAN JUNGLE, SUPPLIES OF NITRO-GLYCERINE ARE URGENTLY NEEDED AT A REMOTE OIL FIELD. THE UNSCRUPULOUS AMERICAN OIL COMPANY PAYS FOUR OUT-OF-WORK MEN TO DELIVER THE SUPPLIES IN TWO HULKING TRUCKS. A TENSE RIVALRY QUICKLY DEVELOPS BETWEEN THE TWO SETS OF DRIVERS; A TENSION MAGNIFIED A THOUSAND FOLD BY THE UNFORGIVING HEAT, THE LURE OF FILTHY LUCRE AND THE ROUGH AND ROCKY ROADS WHERE THE SLIGHTEST JOLT CAN RESULT IN AGONISING DEATH. WHICH OF THE DISPARATE, DESPARATE DESPARADOES WILL SURVIVE THE WHITE-KUCKLE JOURNEY AND CLAIM THE LOOT AND THE GLORY?

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47 of 47 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the greatest thrillers ever - but only the Criterion 2-disc set is worth buying! 13 Sep 2002

By Trevor Willsmer HALL OF FAME TOP 50 REVIEWER

Format:DVD

We can thank the Movie Gods that Jean Gabin didn't want to play a coward or else we'd never have had Charles Vanel's superb performance in Clouzot's The Wages of Fear: it's notable that Friedkin's intriguingly feverish but suspense-free remake didn't even attempt to give its equivalent deadbeat killer a similar arc, despite the fact that the character and his curious shifting relationship with Yves Montand cuts to the very core of the story's take on the nature of courage, bravado and machismo. At the beginning of the film Vanel is the tough guy who can walk the walk, while Montand is his puppy doggish sidekick, throwing over his best friend for his new crush until his feet of clay are revealed when the chips are down. Even in a place where, in the absence of white women the white men cling to each other, this relationship seems to go a few steps beyond mere hero-worship, but when they hit the road the power in the relationship shifts, and in the process we get to watch Yves Montand become a genuine movie star before our very eyes, which is almost as exciting as the road trip to Hell with a truckload of unstable nitro and miles of very, very bumpy roads. Almost, because I doubt there's anything to beat the film's extraordinary double-jeopardy sequence on a rotting platform on a mountain road - a scene pretty much done for real - which takes your breath away until you suddenly realize that the second truck is going to have to do the same thing in even worse conditions... I remember when I saw that at a revival house a couple of years ago I genuinely forgot to breathe during that sequence, and found myself doing the same even on DVD.... Read more ›

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Nerve-wracking and magnificent, and the anti-American oil stuff now just seems quaint 19 Jun 2007

By C. O. DeRiemer HALL OF FAME TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:DVD

The Wages of Fear is a magnificent thriller, the last hour-and-a-half of which will have you chewing your nails up to your wrists. The first hour is interesting but, to my mind, a bit slow. We spend a lot of time getting to know the squalor of Las Piedras. The anti-American point of view now just seems quaint.

Las Piedras is a tiny South American (or possibly Central American) town that reeks of poverty and bakes in the hot sun. Children with sores, tired donkeys and mangy dogs fill the dirt streets. It's the final stop for down-and-outers whose only hope is to find work with the Southern Oil Company (you can infer SOC easily is a stand-in for Standard Oil), which dominates the place. "Americans here? You kidding?" says one man. "If there's oil around they're not far behind," says his companion. SOC has a headquarters office in Las Piedras; the oil field is 300 miles away. Into this fly-infested hole arrives Jo (Charles Vanel), a tough, middle-aged French gangster out of luck and out of cash. He encounters Mario (Yves Montand), a ne'er-do-well in his twenties from Corsica who's stuck in Las Piedras. Mario does odd jobs to make enough money for meals and whiskey, beds and takes for granted the young woman who works at the town's cantina, and longs to get out of the place and back to Paris. The two of them bond in a way, the confident tough guy and the young, not-quite-amoral thug-in-training. The shifting relationship between these two is what drives the story; that they can get blown sky high at any moment after the first hour is what keeps us watching....

When an oil fire erupts at a well head, Bill O'Brien (William Tubbs), the local American SOC boss, decides to send containers of nitroglycerine in two trucks from Las Piedras over three hundred miles of rocky, pot-holed road to put out the fire. He'll hire two men per truck and pay $2,000 per man for those who get through. The one drawback is that nitro is notoriously unstable, will explode in heat and if jostled and the trucks have no safety equipment. The visa-less bums, last chancers and sweating drunks stuck in Las Piedras line up. These are men who are so close to being the dregs of humanity you won't want to spend time standing next to them. You're not going to hire those tramps, one of O'Brien's subordinates says to him. O'Brien makes clear the film's point of view regarding American oil companies. "Those bums," he says, "don't have a union or any families, and if they blow up no one will come around for contributions." And so fifty-six minutes into the movie, Jo and Mario in one truck and Bimba (Peter van Eyck), a blond German, and Luigi (Folco Lulli), a happy Italian dying of lung disease from working in the SOC's cement operation, set off in their trucks. Even they begin to have second thoughts when they watch how slowly and carefully the jerrycans of nitro are loaded.

From now on we're in the cabs of those two trucks, sweating with the heat and our nerves. The road cuts through baking semi-desert, filled with potholes and rocks, and over mountains covered with scrub, shale and boulders. We've got to get through the washboard, a long stretch of dusty road carved into ruts by the wind. If the trucks keep going at 40 miles an hour, all is fine. Go under 40, "boom." Go over and "boom." There's a hairpin turn high on a mountain so sharp the trucks have to back onto a wooden platform to turn around. We find out the wood is rotten and the platform is shaky. There's a boulder as big as a truck that will have to be blasted apart...but only by using some of the nitro in a hazardous improvisation that requires siphoning, a falling hammer and a lit fuse. And worst of all is a large, expanding and deep pool of oil which will have to be driven through. By now we've come to know, if not especially like, these four men. Luigi is strong, coarse and relatively happy. Bimba is resourceful but fatalistic enough to make you a little nervous. Jo? He turns out not to be so tough after all, while Mario becomes the senior partner of the two, and determined enough to run a truck over a man's leg. How many survive? You'll need to see the movie. The ending is just right.

Considering the passion French intellectuals have always had for smoking their Gauloises and condemning what they term American cultural and economic imperialism, Henri-Georges Clouzot makes his points but never at the expense of his film. The first hour may have messages to give, but they're understated and never smack anyone over the head. (However, the movie was cut by nearly an hour for it's initial American release. In addition to losing a fair amount of time in Las Piedras, all those anti-American swipes somehow disappeared.) The journey on the two trucks is so continuously gripping that any messages early on fall to the side of the road. Yves Montand, in one of his earliest movies, and Charles Vanel, an old hand, dominate The Wages of Fear. For those who recall Vanel only as the wily, good-humored police inspector in Clouzot's Diabolique, you're in for a master-class in the versatility of a first-class actor.

The Wages of Fear is a classic, powerful adventure of men placed at risk by their needs and their natures. The Criterion two-disc release features a fine transfer, several interesting extras on the second disc and an informative booklet in the DVD case. This is a movie well worth buying. Read more ›

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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Great surpise! 10 Mar 2006

By Mr. Robert Murphy

Format:DVD

Through Amazon's excellent rental scheme, I'm trying to educate myself by watching films I haven't seen before in genres I wouldn't normally watch. Although I love much modern French cinema, perhaps I'm showing my ignorance and youth by saying I hadn't heard of Wages of Fear.
Great film, though! It is pretty long, and if it were directed today so much of it would have been cut. But it's the opening twenty minutes or so under the beating South American heat which really set the tone for this claustrophobic thriller. The action scenes are fantastic, there are more set-pieces than you can shake a cinematic stick at and there are some great characterisations by a fine acting ensemble. Yves Montand is, of course, excellent in the lead.
I didn't actually fancy watching this when it came down to watching it (footie and phone calls seemed a priority) But as soon as it started I was hooked. A fantastic suprise.

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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Timeless suspense 20 Feb 2002

By johnrichards@connectingbusiness.com

Format:DVD

Fifty years on and none of the suspense has wayned from this timeless classic. Well worth struggling with the French dialogue (subtitled in English) on the Optimum Releasing version. Those with multi region DVD players would do well to track down the Criterion Home Video version with dubbed English and extra scenes and features not seen since pre-prohibition times. If this has given you a taste for the genius of Henri-Georges Clouzot you may well like Diabloique. More psycho that Psycho!!. But pales into insignificance angainst the mastery contained in The Wages of Fear.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars It will make your hair white and leave your hands shakin!

Wages of fear is a wonderful black and white drama and thriller

It took TWO attempts at watching this brilliant drama. Read more

Published 9 days ago by Bobby Klump

4.0 out of 5 stars Gung-ho driving

An old fashioned film I first saw in my teens, when you could have gung-ho films without sex, violence and murder. Read more

Published 2 months ago by Maha Upasika Gotami

2.0 out of 5 stars The Wages of Fear

The Ages of Fear
Very dated. first half dragged and the second half predictable. I found myself looking at my watch on several occasions. Read more

Published 3 months ago by ALASTAIR FLEMING

4.0 out of 5 stars Edge of the seat movie!

This movie is a grind – in the best possible way: gritty, edge of the seat stuff. A classic. You gotta see it! This DVD version is a bit grey, a bit fuzzy. Read more

Published 5 months ago by Mr. P. Davis

5.0 out of 5 stars Clouzot's Explosively Human Epic

Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1953 epic The Wages Of fear is not just an outstanding and nail-biting thriller, but it is also a brilliantly affecting character study of male friendship,... Read more

Published 6 months ago by Keith M

5.0 out of 5 stars A great watch!

Fantastic film....made when films were films. I love the atmosphere created in the small town where various types of guys are milling around looking for work whilst scratching in... Read more

Published 7 months ago by Mr. K. Webster

5.0 out of 5 stars Wages of Fear

I remember watching this film at the cinema many years ago. To see it on video at home was just as enjoyable as when I first saw the film in the cinema. Read more

Published 8 months ago by Doublecheck

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow! What a film

Wow! What a film, wish it was released in English, reading the sub-titles can be annoying, but what a movie, full of breathtaking suspence, drama and intrigue. Read more

Published 13 months ago by M. Clark

5.0 out of 5 stars life is....

yes... Life is hard... and then you die... BUT...
before you die... you must see this film... one
of the most influential films of the 20th Century. Read more

Published 14 months ago by LONDON NINJA.

1.0 out of 5 stars what is possibly good about this

At points in this drawn out saga the dvd player was put to x2 with subtitles then on occasion x4 and x8 with reference to the plot on wikipedia so i didn't have to sit through the... Read more

Published 17 months ago by columboforpresident

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