The Wages of Fear (Le salaire de la peur)
June 2009 Reviewed by: Rad Bennett Format: Blu-ray	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

"You don’t know what fear is. But you’ll see. It’s catching. It’s catching like smallpox. And once you get it, it’s for life."

It’s been a long time since I’ve been scared at the movies. I mean really scared, where I get goose bumps and want to shout out warnings to the characters on screen. I’ve been excited, adrenalized, and energized, but seldom afraid. I would have found it hard to imagine that a movie 55 years old, in black and white and Academy ratio yet, would be the one to trigger fear, but that’s what it did.

The setup is simple. In a squalid oil town in South America, the Southern Oil Company hires four local bums to drive two trucks loaded with nitroglycerine to another camp to combat a raging oil fire. The road they must travel is anything but smooth, resembling no more than a cattle trail that's seldom, if ever, repaired. Nitroglycerin is rendered explosive by being shocked, so if ever there was a suicide mission, this is it. But the oil company offers big bucks to get someone to go, knowing full well that they will save money because not all of them will make it.

It takes about an hour to get to the actual journey. In dirty little Las Piedras, we meet the four men who will volunteer for the job: the young adventurer Mario (Yves Montand), the older and aggressive Jo (Charles Vanel), the German Bimba (Peter Van Eyck), and the affable Italian Luigi (Folco Lulli) as well as the unscrupulous boss of the company, Bill O’Brien (William Tubbs), and the woman Linda (Vera Clouzot), in love with Mario. Jo blusters as if he is in charge, though once on the road he proves cowardly. Though redeemed somewhat by his good looks, Mario comes across as a cad in the way he treats Linda like a pet or possession.

Once the journey into harm’s way is started, there’s no let up to the suspense. The two trucks must traverse a section of road known as the "washboard" where one must maintain a speed less than 6 mph or over 40. Then they must turn around on what remains of a rotting bridge, and finally must use some of their cargo to blow up a boulder that has fallen in their way. At every point, one catches one’s breath, knowing that one false move can mean the end. Director Henri-Georges Clouzot realized, as surely as Alfred Hitchcock, that the possibility of dire events was far scarier than the events themselves. I won’t print any spoilers to tell you what does happen, but I can sincerely relate that you’ll always be on the edge of your seat expecting the worst.

Criterion presents the full-length, 147-minute European version of the movie, the one that was re-released in the US in 1991. Its original US release had been almost a half hour shorter, as censors felt the movie was too anti-American. The censorship is discussed in one of the special-edition features. Other features offer a 2004 documentary on director Clouzot and current interviews with assistant director Michel Romanoff and Clouzot biographer Marc Godin, as well as a 1988 interview with Montand. There’s also a handsome booklet with a very interesting essay by Dennis Lehane, author of Gone Baby Gone and Mystic River. And Criterion has listened to everyone and ditched the flimsy cardboard cases for Blu-ray. This one comes in a sturdy plastic case. No blue, though; you’d only know this is a Blu-ray by reading the fine print on the back cover.

The Blu-ray itself? I’ve said it before and will say it again: No one does transfers of black-and-white films like Criterion does. They have the contrast down pat, use good materials, and then clean those up. There’s no way you’d believe this movie was over half a century old, unless you knew it up front. In the opening scene, there are characters out on a porch-like affair that has a roof of slats. The sun creates a striped display out of this that touches everyone, and some of them are wearing tight plaids. It’s a feast for the eyes, served up to perfection by this transfer. That’s but one of many examples. Clouzot has been in Berlin for some time and seen the work of Murnau and was fascinated with the play of light and shadow. The sound is quite good for mono. Interestingly, there’s very little music in this film. The suspense is not generated by swooping strings or blaring brass, yet it’s twice as effective.

This is a classic that you’ll want to buy to add to your library of suspense thrillers, and put near the front.

• Go Back