- Casino Royale Review
- Carrie (1976)
- Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)
- Trainspotting (1996)
- Rain Man (1988)
- Fatal Attraction (1987)
- Targets (1968)
- An Education (2009)
- Mirror, The (1974)
- Fargo (1996)
- Fight Club (1999)
- Do The Right Thing (1989)
- Report (1967)
- Is "The Sting" The Best Gambling Film Ever Made?
- Pink Flamingos (1972)
- Ox-Bow Incident, The (1943), Or 28 Angry Men
- Rome, Open City (1945)
- Spring in a Small Town (1948)
- Drive (2011)
- Vinyl (1965)
- Seconds (1966)
- Rosemary's Baby (1968)
- A Hollywood Invasion of Casino Halls
- Thin Man, The (1934)
- In The Heat of the Night (1967)
- All In: The Poker Movie, Player’s Best Tricks
- Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
- 1001 Club - Skyfall (2012)
- 1001 Club - When Harry Met Sally... (1988)
- 1001 Club - Rain Man (1988)
Wages Of Fear, The (1953)
It really IS jump-out-of-your-truck suspense!
Genre: Drama Thriller (France, Italy)
Starring: Yves Montand (Z • Jean de Florette), Charles Vanel (Les diaboliques • To Catch a Thief)
Directed By: Henri-Georges Clouzot (Les diaboliques • Quai des Orfèvres)
Overview: In a poor South American town dominated by the Southern Oil Company, a shipment of nitroglycerine is desperately needed to put out a massive fire. The SOC, without the special equipment needed to safely transport the explosives, offers four drivers a large reward to risk their lives to carry the deadly cargo up the mountain.
Bill O'Brien: The Hell with the Union! There's plenty of tramps in town, all volunteers. I'm not worried. To get that bonus, they'll carry the entire charge on their backs.
Bradley: You mean you're gonna put those bums to work?
Bill O'Brien: Yes, Mr. Bradley, because those bums don't have any union, nor any families. And if they blow up, nobody'll come around bothering me for any contribution.
Performance: 9 Cinematography: 8 Script: 8 Plot: 8 Mood: 9
Overall Rating: 84% (High Wages Indeed)
Aftertaste:
Criterion included some interesting special features on this The Wages of Fear Blu-Ray, including a segment on the parts that were censored by America in the original theatrical release. Naturally, ironically, these were all the best parts of the first hour. Seeing them strung together added an interesting context into the perceived anti-American sentiment surrounding this film in 1953. I recommend you stick around and watch some of those special features on the Criterion Blu-Ray disk.
Funny, I just saw this for the first time to - about a week or two ago. Like you, I was blown away. However...
(spoilers)
I was disappointed by the ending. Yeah, that's part of the point - you've been through so much with him, you really WANT the character to survive (a good thing, and hard to do as so many thrillers instill a more bloodthirsty mood). But even if they're going to kill him, it should have been done with more poetic irony. I thought they had left a canister on the side of the road earlier in the film (you know, the one they poured into the boulder to blow it up) and that he would accidentally hit it on his joyride back. We would have still ended the film with hearts sunk, but it would have felt "right" in some way. Him just going flying off the road for driving too recklessly, I thought, was a pretty weak way to wrap things up. Otherwise though, fantastic.
Dude , I really envy you getting to see this for the first time. It's on of the great "first time" films.
Have you seen Clouzot's "Diabolique" ? If not, check it out.
I have, remember loving it as an early film in my 'wait movies are more than 90s comedies?' development and I'm looking forward to seeing it again as a critic.
I loved this one far more than I thought I would. The opening is slow but necessary--the last hour or so is amazingly tense. Loved, loved, loved it.