Le salaire du courage

This little B-movie may be a long way from its classic French predecessor The Wages of Fear (1953), but it still manages a few shudders. Six guys drive tanker trucks down a winding mountain road, with a load of rocket fuel. One false move and they're less than toast. Of course, there're the inevitable hazards-- a runaway bus, sloppy brakes, and who forgot to tighten the fuel valve, plus, a wild- driving kid (Garrison).

Good thing Brian Keith's in charge. He's perfect for the blue-collar role, though poor Zimbalist Jr. looks a little lost, even as a professor doing double duty as a driver. Notice how they work the good-looking girls into a macho story-line. The movie knows its drive-in audience will get tired of the ugly guys. Also, the canny producers went out and got one of Hollywood's best actresses, Ann Doran, for the heavy-duty role of the Sarge's wife. And, if memory serves, the Kennedy Meadows road northwest of Lone Pine was used for the mountain hair-raiser scenes.

Unfortunately, this is the type of solid little B-movie that would soon drive off into the sunset.

Brian Keith, with his patented wry and cynical wit, is perfectly cast to lead the heavy truck convoy of desperate men hauling explosive cargo in a race against time. This is a plot similar to "The Wages Of Fear (1954) and "Sorcerer" (1975), so it couldn't help but be a nailbiter if done well...and it is. But the script resists the temptation to lay down wall-to-wall action in favor of good character development through flashbacks, a well-used device but an effective one. Leith Stevens provides a good music score, even accompanying a trucker as he drives along singing "Breezin' Along With The Breeze" (before the inevitable problems begin, naturally). Violent Road was filmed near Lone Pine, California, with plenty of shots of crumbling cliffs, laboring diesel engines, spinning tires...all the neat stuff that cinema-action fans like, but with enough celluloid devoted to getting us to know the men behind the steering wheels and why they wanted the job to begin with. Recommended for all.

While I can't say I prefer this film to either Wages of Fear or Sorcerer, I agree that it is pretty enjoyable. Some of the wisecracks and banter are pure 1950's hard-boiled pulp, and Brian Keith has never been better as a certain type of swaggering man's man particular to that Era.

"Walker would shrink his own mother's head for a dollar."

"I'm not allergic to a buck, either."

"You pull a stunt like that again I'll rub yer head in the sand til its hamburger!"

While all of this is certainly amusing in a time capsule kind of way, the film itself plays like the storyboards to a much more tension-filled film. Compared to the trials and tribulations undergone by the doomed men in both Wages of Fear and Sorcerer, the journey in Violent Road is rather muted. But still, an enjoyable way to spend an hour and twenty eight minutes.

Trucker Mitch Barton (Brian Keith) has three days to transport explosive rocket fuel over a dangerous mountain road. He had lied, but the owner has no choice. He has no trucks and no drivers. The company provides the trucks and Mitch recruits a few hard-lucked drivers.

This is an American remake of The Wages of Fear (1953). This one is only a shadow of its superior predecessor. The tension never gets that high. It doesn't have the fear. Not enough of the road looks dangerous. There are moments which suggest at what this could have been. This one has less to say about the wages. Neither the fear nor the wages are all there. It's all a little less.

One of the great French films of the 1950s was "The Wages of Fear". This tense movie was at heart an attack on capitalism....and this caused a predicament for American studios. They wanted to remake the film....after all the main plot is dynamite! But they didn't want to make the film an attack on capitalism. So, they came up with a ruse....the entire plot all rests on chemicals that are needed for the rocket industry and the rocket industry is needed to protect America. So, it's a film with patriotism and anti-communism in the American version...whereas the French could easily be seen as a pro-communist picture! Unfortunately, by changing the plot, the risk to the drivers' lives made less sense...as there SHOULD have been soldiers/cops along the route to ensure the safety of the drivers. They also should have checked the route thoroughly to make sure it was passable. They also should have thoroughly checked the drivers to be sure they weren't deranged--as one of them clearly is yet they let him drive the rocket fuel!

So, aside from being more illogical than "Wages of Fear", is the movie any good? Yes and no. The story is modestly engaging and the actors try their best...but much of the tension seems more muted and the flashbacks throughout the film seem like filler. Overall, an okay film remake of a much better movie.