The Wages of Fear (1953)
New Years Eve. Working over the holidays isn’t so, so bad, Frank thinks. At least he isn’t out “ringing in the new year” with a bunch of people who secretly despise each other. Vapid small talk with co-workers for 4–5 hours followed by 10 seconds of Carson Daly’s countdown. Alternatively, perhaps, then to usher in the next 100th-part of this hateful millennium with a weak, macerated, hug from the gal who never had enough time and the overtly brawny handshake of her current lover? No sir, Frank is much happier spending the evening going through the endless sheaf of papers on his desk.
In particular, he is looking at the writing projects he’s been pitched, an exhaustive stack of hackneyed and re-hashed drivel that had been piling up since he’d been off in the Caribbean. Few had a proper log line, and none had even a semi-fleshed out plot. It just seemed that so very many, many people worked with a group of “wacky” and/or “A-type personalities” whose comical and yet serious or dangerous hi-jinx were sure to make Spielberg laugh, weep, then open his wallet. All Frank needed to do was cobble together a few half-good anecdotes into a compelling two-hour script and he’d be a millionaire. Simple! Bah!
Whose story should he pick? The wacky hotel staff? The wacky firemen? The one that particularly annoyed him as was the one about the wacky gun-for-hire truck drivers going overseas. Their wacky, A-type personalities keep them in the hot zone and all they have to show for it is money. They get no parade when they come home. Wah!
Say what you will about the politics, death and destruction (and perhaps even freedom) when it comes to the war. Debate even the implications of the quote/unquote all-volunteer army. The simple fact is that if you are an average middle-American male with a CDL there’s work lots of places not inside a war zone. Buck up, chief. You took a job carting a truckload of TP and sanitary napkins to Al-Basrah for Halliburton and all you got to show for it was some decent scratch. Hard to feel bad when there’s school buses and UPS trucks that need driven in Peoria.
The bigger offense Frank takes with this one, of course, is that the movie has been done. A little thing called The Wages of Fear (Le Salaire de la Peur; 1953) by Henri-Georges Clouzot. (Also re-made as Sorcerer [Friedkin; 1977] with Roy Scheider). Criterion issued a restored version of the film on October 25. Frank is tempted to send his would be truck-driving collaborator a copy.
Wages centers on a group of wacky, A-type personalities who are hired to transport two trucks of nitroglycerine to a remote oil field in South America (though convincingly shot in the south of France). However, the fact that without safety gear, a mere pothole could spell death for the four outcast drivers is not enough. For their $2,000, they must also endure crumbling half-built-bridges, oil-filled bogs or boulders in the road, and of course their own mismatched personalities. Oh, the hi-jinx!
While the photography, sound design and acting are not overly breathtaking, the film is a startlingly compelling piece cut down to only critical action. Over-analysis of the plot kills it for sure. Still, The 147 minutes fly by easily and mysteriously. What can be annoying about the film, to note, however, is the veiled homoeroticism of the kind that can only be present in French films from the 1950s. Our four heroes all expatriates to South America looking for work: The brash and young Frenchman Mario wanting to make the nitro-run to make money for airfare out of town, and his cowardly ‘mentor’ Jo. A jolly Italian named Luigi and his stoic partner Bimba, a German escaped from the Nazi salt mines. Though they fight amongst each other, they all have ambiguous relationships toward each other and (Europeanism, be damned!) seem all too interested in touched each other or having a group piss, etc. Mario, furthermore, has a love interest with a busty floor scrubber, Linda (played by Clouzot’s wife Vera). But, he pays very little attention to her, even smiling as she goes off to fuck the local bar owner, until his other three comrades are out of the picture.
Of course, what this tale of wacky adventure for cash does have over all the other film ideas on Frank’s desk is, for lack of a better word: Motivation. Also naturalism. It is a must-see for fans of films like John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). From the opening credits, Clouzot paints a picture of poverty and squalor in which these semi-idle men languish. They are not undertaking a dangerous mission for just some extra cash any more than they are oil roughnecks flying into outer space to blow up an asteroid. They are poor men trying to survive.
Yes, what this truck-driver wanted Frank to write for a measly $1,000-cut of his war time profit was the next Armageddon (Bay 1998), but it sure as hell read more like Smokey and the Bandit (Needam 1977). And sadly, this to Frank’s mind reads like a compliment, with Bandit being the better of the two named pictures.
However, it is midnight and time to sneak off back to his room before the police roadblocks go up. The next ‘convoy’ masterpiece ends up in the trash next to the wacky hotel staff’s escapades…
New Years Eve. Working over the holidays isn’t so, so bad, Frank thinks. At least he isn’t out “ringing in the new year” with a bunch of people who secretly despise each other. Vapid small talk with co-workers for 4–5 hours followed by 10 seconds of Carson Daly’s countdown. Alternatively, perhaps, then to usher in the next 100th-part of this hateful millennium with a weak, macerated, hug from the gal who never had enough time and the overtly brawny handshake of her current lover? No sir, Frank is much happier spending the evening going through the endless sheaf of papers on his desk.
In particular, he is looking at the writing projects he’s been pitched, an exhaustive stack of hackneyed and re-hashed drivel that had been piling up since he’d been off in the Caribbean. Few had a proper log line, and none had even a semi-fleshed out plot. It just seemed that so very many, many people worked with a group of “wacky” and/or “A-type personalities” whose comical and yet serious or dangerous hi-jinx were sure to make Spielberg laugh, weep, then open his wallet. All Frank needed to do was cobble together a few half-good anecdotes into a compelling two-hour script and he’d be a millionaire. Simple! Bah!
Whose story should he pick? The wacky hotel staff? The wacky firemen? The one that particularly annoyed him as was the one about the wacky gun-for-hire truck drivers going overseas. Their wacky, A-type personalities keep them in the hot zone and all they have to show for it is money. They get no parade when they come home. Wah!
Say what you will about the politics, death and destruction (and perhaps even freedom) when it comes to the war. Debate even the implications of the quote/unquote all-volunteer army. The simple fact is that if you are an average middle-American male with a CDL there’s work lots of places not inside a war zone. Buck up, chief. You took a job carting a truckload of TP and sanitary napkins to Al-Basrah for Halliburton and all you got to show for it was some decent scratch. Hard to feel bad when there’s school buses and UPS trucks that need driven in Peoria.
The bigger offense Frank takes with this one, of course, is that the movie has been done. A little thing called The Wages of Fear (Le Salaire de la Peur; 1953) by Henri-Georges Clouzot. (Also re-made as Sorcerer [Friedkin; 1977] with Roy Scheider). Criterion issued a restored version of the film on October 25. Frank is tempted to send his would be truck-driving collaborator a copy.
Wages centers on a group of wacky, A-type personalities who are hired to transport two trucks of nitroglycerine to a remote oil field in South America (though convincingly shot in the south of France). However, the fact that without safety gear, a mere pothole could spell death for the four outcast drivers is not enough. For their $2,000, they must also endure crumbling half-built-bridges, oil-filled bogs or boulders in the road, and of course their own mismatched personalities. Oh, the hi-jinx!
While the photography, sound design and acting are not overly breathtaking, the film is a startlingly compelling piece cut down to only critical action. Over-analysis of the plot kills it for sure. Still, The 147 minutes fly by easily and mysteriously. What can be annoying about the film, to note, however, is the veiled homoeroticism of the kind that can only be present in French films from the 1950s. Our four heroes all expatriates to South America looking for work: The brash and young Frenchman Mario wanting to make the nitro-run to make money for airfare out of town, and his cowardly ‘mentor’ Jo. A jolly Italian named Luigi and his stoic partner Bimba, a German escaped from the Nazi salt mines. Though they fight amongst each other, they all have ambiguous relationships toward each other and (Europeanism, be damned!) seem all too interested in touched each other or having a group piss, etc. Mario, furthermore, has a love interest with a busty floor scrubber, Linda (played by Clouzot’s wife Vera). But, he pays very little attention to her, even smiling as she goes off to fuck the local bar owner, until his other three comrades are out of the picture.
Of course, what this tale of wacky adventure for cash does have over all the other film ideas on Frank’s desk is, for lack of a better word: Motivation. Also naturalism. It is a must-see for fans of films like John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). From the opening credits, Clouzot paints a picture of poverty and squalor in which these semi-idle men languish. They are not undertaking a dangerous mission for just some extra cash any more than they are oil roughnecks flying into outer space to blow up an asteroid. They are poor men trying to survive.
Yes, what this truck-driver wanted Frank to write for a measly $1,000-cut of his war time profit was the next Armageddon (Bay 1998), but it sure as hell read more like Smokey and the Bandit (Needam 1977). And sadly, this to Frank’s mind reads like a compliment, with Bandit being the better of the two named pictures.
However, it is midnight and time to sneak off back to his room before the police roadblocks go up. The next ‘convoy’ masterpiece ends up in the trash next to the wacky hotel staff’s escapades…
.
posted by Graveyard Frank at 4:09 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home