Review of The Wages of Fear (1953) by Svein S — 02 Nov 2008

This film has some major problems. Nothing of interest happens for about an hour (I'm all for character development, but when the characters are this vile, stupid and greedy, it's really not worth the effort), the narrative is episodic, and, like I said, the characters are so appallingly unlikeable and annoying that I was glad to see most of them dead.

Also the ending is idiotic. But! The suspense! Ah! Clouzot manages, after trudging through the first hour, to create a palpable and terrifying sense of imminent doom for almost the entire remaining length of the film.

It really is amazingly exciting, I found myself gasping at what was happening, and I even yelled at a character at one point, which I never do. It's brilliant, and it's worth sitting through the bad stuff.

Now I really want to see the Friedkin/Scheider remake.