• Le Salaire de la peur (The Wages of Fear)

7/21/25 (Mon)

I finally got around to seeing Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1953 classic after enjoying the jaw-dropping US remake Sorcerer nearly a year earlier. This version was equally spectacular and intense but differed in certain ways (Friedkin always insisted that he based his film on the original novel).

This version does not go into how the various men ended up in the unnamed South American nation; they are already there for the most part when we meet them. It’s less interested in exploring the backgrounds of the individuals than in setting the atmosphere, taking its time to show the lazy Latin town and its poverty-stricken denizens in a blazingly hot summer. As a result, we don’t really get to know the people other than Yves Montand and the American oil executive. The portrait of the latter is especially biting: he turns to volunteers since they have no union or families to bother him for money if something goes wrong. Other than those scenes, the sequence goes on beyond its relevance to the plot and should have been shorter, though it’s superbly shot. And the parts with the Hispanic woman pining for the hunky Montand were way overdone.

Once the journey begins, though, the director doesn’t put a foot wrong. In addition to the stoic Montand, there’s a nervous former gangster; a buoyant Italian who, unbeknownst to the others, is dying of a lung disease; and a quiet German who experienced a bitter life under the Nazis. Their stories come out gradually in the course of the journey. The obstacles along the way are still nail-biting, especially the terrifying bridge sequence.

The loss of the first truck is portrayed matter-of-factly in the distance with no clear indication of just what happened. The scene through the lake of oil is harrowing, not least with the ex-gangster, covered jet-black in oil from head to toe, screaming in fear and agony. Montand runs over the man’s leg without a thought, determined to get the truck out regardless of what is in the way. An amazing scene. The ex-gangster’s final words as he lays dying in the truck, his head on Montand’s lap, are moving: trying to remember what lays behind a certain fence in their faraway hometown, he finally realizes, “There’s nothing”, as he closes his eyes for the last time. Montand’s fate thereafter is shown clearly as opposed to the more ambiguous (and better) ending in the US version. I’m not sure why the Hispanic woman suddenly faints during the celebrations prior to seeing him unless we’re to believe that she somehow sensed Montand’s death.

The cast is uniformly strong. Montand, Charles Vanel as the ex-gangster, and William Tubbs as the oil executive were the standouts. I hear that the film has been colorized, but I thought the black and white was terrific, particularly when the guys were drenched in oil, looking like monsters from the black lagoon. The direction and editing were beyond reproach. Other than the few irritants noted (especially the long intro), the film couldn’t be better. Both this and its 1997 remake are musts.