Wages Of Fear

Starring: Charles Vanel, Yves Montand Director: HenriGeorges Clouzot Original UK Premiere: 1952 Dvd Release: 21st January, 2002 Number Of Discs: 1 Format: Black & White, PAL, Subtitled, Region 0 Encoding Subtitled In: English

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DVD Extras: The print is in great shape, though the image is a little soft; the menu has a clever explosive aspect & uses the same vintage artwork as the sleeve cannily combined with a snippet. There are trailers for both Wages & Clozuot's other masterpiece, Les Diaboliques, as well as biographies of the principal cast, eight stills & three posters.--

In 1953, before any American studio exec used the phrase high concept, Henri-George Clouzots The Wages of Fear boasted a premise so literally explosive that audiences were excited before they got into the theatres. With an oil-fire burning out of control deep in the South American jungle, two lorryloads of highly unstable nitro-glycerin have to be driven through miles of unstable terrain littered with dangerous turns, crumbling planks, falling rocks & mediocre hardtop. One good jolt will vaporise truck, nitro, drivers & a substantial swathe of the countryside, so the company recruits desperate souls among the loser tramps who loiter around the nowhere town of Las Piedras, begging for any kind of work.

On the road, Clouzot stages a string of unforgettable sequences: one stretch of badly paved track can only be crossed by driving at under six miles an hour or over 40; a mountain turn requires that the trucks back out onto a rickety, rotten wooden structure; a 50-ton boulder has fallen into the road, & one of the drivers calmly drains a litre of nitro into his thermos to blow it up, only remembering when the fuse is lit that this will rain pebbles all over the countryside & a few good hits on the cargo will set it off. This is perhaps as great a mix of action-adventure & contest as The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, & still a textbook example of sustained suspense.

Yves Montand was a French / Italian actor, born Ivo Livi in Monsummano Alto, Italy. Shortly after his birth, Montands family left Italy for France. Montand came to grow up in Marseille, where as a young man he worked in his sisters barber shop & later on the docks. He began a career in show business as a music-hall singer. In 1944 he was discovered by Edith Piaf in Paris & she made him part of her act, becoming his mentor & lover. He would go on to international recognition, starring in numerous films. In 1951 Montand married the actress Simone Signoret, co-starring several times with her until her death in 1985. Jean de Florette co-starring Gerard Depardieu & Manon des Sources co-starring Emmanuelle Beart. During his career he acted in a number of American motion pictures as well as on Broadway. He was nominated for a Cesar Award for Best Actor in 1980 for the film I comme Icare & again in 1984 for Garçon ! His only child, Valentin Montand, the son of his assistant Carole Amiel, was born in 1988. In his later years, he maintained a home in Provence until his death. Posters Of Jean De Florette

Editors Choice: Jean De Florette, Manon Des Sources, On A Clear Day You Can See Forever, Wages Of Fear, Manon Of The Spring, Z, View DVDology

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