Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1953 masterpiece of suspense, Wages Of Fear was released in North American a year later in 1954 shorn of over twenty minutes. The American distributors removed portions of the film that they felt were anti-American, as they insinuated that the United States was involved in some crooked business dealings with less than wholesome elements down in South America. When Criterion released the film on laser disc, they restored the film to its full running time and when they issued the DVD the first time out, they ported over that same cut of the film. This new two disc special edition re-release of the film marks the third time that Criterion has released the uncut version of the film on home video, but this time out they make up for past mistakes by flagging the transfer for progressive scan playback, restoring the audio and video, and adding a wealth of interesting supplemental features.

In the small, impoverished South American town of Las Piedres, the Southern Oil Company is making money hand over fist. While the people who populate the town and supply much of the labor are living hand to mouth in run down shacks and eating bread and water, the men who run the oil company are doing just fine. Unfortunately for the suits, their life of luxury is put into some serious jeopardy when one of the main oil wells that they've been refining from catches ablaze. With the well being situated over three hundred miles from the border of Las Piedres, they're unsure how to get the proper men and supplies there to fight the fire and save their precious oil.

Soon though, one of the oil company men comes up with the idea of hiring four tough rogues to drive two tanker trucks full of nitroglycerine there to use to put out the blaze. Word gets out, and soon the four men are ready for the job not because they want to do it, but because they need the money and the two thousand dollars being offered for their services is just too much for them to pass up. The fact that the odds of their survival are slim to none doesn't stop Luigi (Folco Lulli), Bimba (Peter Van Eyck), Joe (Charles Vanel) and Mario (Yves Montrand) from showing up for work and soon they're paired up into two teams of two for the long drive through dangerous terrain where a single bump or spark could send them to certain death.

The four men drive their precocious cargo across the rugged roads through bamboo forests, across teetering bridges, and through rocky areas in hopes of making it there alive and intact to collect their pay. As their journey grows longer, their relationships develop and tensions arise from both their environment and their companionship.

The four main characters are all in the same predicament but come from very different backgrounds and as such, they're not quite the best of friends sometimes despite the fact that they know they need to stick together to make this all work. The most interesting aspect of the film is to see how they react to one another and to their situations as they crop up, each encounter along the road to their destination more arduous than the next. One of the men wants to get out and run, throw in the towel and make it out with his life, another becomes a brutal savage in the face of danger. One finds a new lust for life along the way, while another enjoys the challenge that this job presents him with.

Clouzot allows us to get to know the four central characters just enough to care about what happens to them on their trip which in turn makes the film all the more suspenseful. Stand out moments such as when one of the trucks gets stuck on a feeble looking bridge or when the other trucks becomes mired along an oil slicked road will have you gripping the edge of your chair in anticipation for what comes next. The performances are solid across the board, the cinematography makes excellent use of contrast and shadowy lighting effects to heighten the mood. The end result is that everything falls into place nicely in the full cut of the film. The characters and their motivations are there, the set pieces are riveting, and the pacing, even at almost two and a half hours in length, never seems dull. Wages Of Fear is not a happy film, nor is it a testament to optimism or the human spirit – it's very dark, very grim, and very intense – but it is an exceptionally well made picture that stands the test of time extremely well and plays well even now, over fifty years since it was made.

The DVD

Video:

This brand new 1.33.1 fullframe black and white transfer looks fantastic. Black levels are strong and deep and don't bury the fine detail in the background of the image at all. The grays look nice and stay fairly strong, as do the whites and this is a very well balanced image. There is some mild print damage in a few spots that shows up in the form of the odd scratch or speck here and there but these instances are few and far between. An understandable amount of film grain is also present throughout but it never proves to be distracting at all. In terms of digital problems there aren't any mpeg compression artifacts to note and neither is there any serious edge enhancement. There's a minute amount of flicker in some scenes but again, it's such a non-issue that it's only mentioned here for the sake of being anal retentive. Criterion has done a bang up job in the visuals department on this release.