Wages of Fear (ej svensk text)

The film that continues to serve as the benchmark for Clouzot's magnificent career, The Wages of Fear established the writer-director on a truly International level after carrying off major prizes at the Cannes and Berlin film festivals. Part road movie, part suspence 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 (Yves Montana, Charles Vane - the creepy cop in Les Diaboliques, Folco Lulli and Peter Van Eyck) to deliver the supplies in two hulking trucks. A tense rivalry quickly develops between the two sets of drivers; a tension magnified thousand fold by the rough and rocky roads where the slightest jolt can result in agonising death. Which of the disparate, despaerate desperadoes will survive the white-knuckle journey and claim the loot and the glory? Fuelled by Armand Third's stunning photography and appropriately taut editing by Madeleine Gug and Henri Rust, The Wages of Fear offers on one level pure cinematic adventure, whilst also succeeding as an eye opening peek at a crazed world driven by machismo, lust competitiveness and greed.