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The Wages of Fear (1952)
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Reviews Counted:35
Fresh:35
Rotten:0
Average Rating:8.8/10
Consensus: An existential suspense classic, The Wages of Fear blends nonstop suspense with biting satire; its influence is still being felt on today's thrillers.
Runtime: 2 hrs 28 mins
Genre: Foreign Films
Synopsis: Henri Georges Clouzot directed this tense and suspenseful drama about four men so desperate for freedom that they willingly risk their lives to deliver a dangerous cargo. In a small, isolated, hot... Henri Georges Clouzot directed this tense and suspenseful drama about four men so desperate for freedom that they willingly risk their lives to deliver a dangerous cargo. In a small, isolated, hot and dusty Central American village, there's only one thing to do: dream of getting out. An opportunity for escape presents itself -- but only to those with nerves of steel. An American oil company has offered to pay big bucks to get two trucks filled with nitroglycerin over to a well fire. The catch: the unpaved terrain contains enough bumps and crags to make the unstable material explode... and instantly kill the driver. Nonetheless, the company has many applicants hungry for work, and a quartet of the coolest are chosen. But even these stalwart men will discover that fear of their deadly payload can ignite even the most frozen emotions. [More]
Starring: Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Vera Clouzot, Peter Van Eyck
Starring: Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Vera Clouzot, Peter Van Eyck, Folco Lulli, William Tubbs
Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot
Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot
Screenwriter: Henri-Georges Clouzot
Producer: Raymond Borderie, Henri-Georges Clouzot
Composer: Georges Auric
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Release:
Apr 21, 2009
Blu-ray Disc Features:
- Region [unknown]
- Full Frame - 1.33
Audio:
- Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono - English
- Subtitles - English
Additional Release Material:
- Comparisons: Censored - Analysis Of Cuts Made For 1955 U.S. Film Release
- Documentary: Henri-Georges Clouzot: The Enlightened Tyrant - 2004
Interviews:
- 1. Yves Montand, Actor - 1988
- 2. Michel Romanoff, Assistant Director
- 3. Marc Godin, Henri-Georges Clouzot Biographer
Additional Products:
- Booklet - Dennis Lahane, Novelist - Essay
Reviews for The Wages of Fear
An extraordinarily gripping thriller from Henri-Georges Clouzot that establishes and maintains a level of tension rarely equalled elsewhere in cinema.
A significant influence on Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, this grueling pile driver of a movie will keep you on the edge of your seat.
The film's extended suspense sequences deserve a place among the great stretches of cinema.
When contrabandists become businessmen and human life is blown away as simply as the tobacco in a half-rolled cigarillo, heroism and grace are notions that wither in the heat
A certified classic with one of the most famous plots in film history.
"Wages of Fear" is an uncompromising parable about money, greed, and man's jealous desire for that which he can never have. Yves Montand is outstanding in this gritty and unrelentingly suspenseful picture.
One of the best existential thrillers ever made, Clouzot's 1952 film, which won the Cannes Fest Palme d'Or, is just as fresh, suspenseful, gritty and haunting today as it was decades ago; good companion piece to Clouzot's Diabolique.
The Wages of Fear is a frantic, vicious, existentialist howl that still manages to laugh; it goes grinning into the void.
A classic suspense film...also the screen equivalent of a classic existentialist drama...The chemical reaction Clouzot gets from these genres is pure dynamite. [Blu-ray]
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