the m0vie blog

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guest Tony Black, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.

This time, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Le salaire de la peur.

Four men drift idly around a deadend town in the heart of South America, when an unlikely opportunity strikes. A freak accident has caused a fire at an American oil well, and the company is offering a lavish payday to anybody who can help. The only catch is that to earn that money, these four men will have to drive extremely volatile nitroglycerine across some of the most treacherous terrain imaginable. Those who survive will have enough to escape the purgatory in which they’ve found themselves, and those who don’t won’t care.

At time of recording, it was ranked 202nd on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

Show notes:

• Recorded 2nd April 2020.
• Note: Due to the COVID-19 situation, this episode was recorded remotely. We suspect, going forward that a lot of our episodes will be until the crisis resolves.
• Watch Wages of Fear at The Museum of Cinema.
• Wages of Fear at The Internet Movie Database.
• The IMDB Top 250 as it appeared at time of recording.
• Follow Tony on Twitter.
• Listen to Tony (and occasionally Darren) on The X-Cast.
• Listen to Tony on Primitive Culture at Trek.fm.
• Read Tony at Set the Tape.
• Follow the New Wave Podcast on Twitter.
• The New York Times reports on the arrest of author Henri Girard for triple homicide, October 1941.
• The Los Angeles Times offers an obituary for Henri Girard, March 1987.
• J. Hoberman at Lapham’s Quarterly on the history and the development of Wages of Fear, Summer 2017.
• Susan King at The Los Angeles Times discusses the life and career of Henri-Georges Clouzot, April 2004.
• David Thomson discusses the life and career of Henri-Georges Clouzot at The Guardian, July 2003.
• James Oliver at The New European on the legacy of Le Corbeau, September 2018.
• The New York Times offers an obituary of Vera Clouzot, December 1960.
• Liam Lacey at The Globe and Mail offers an appreciation of The Wages of Fear, June 2010.
• Neil McGlone at Criterion on the success of The Wages of Fear at Cannes, May 2017.
• Terrence Rafferty at The New York Times on the career and legacy of Henri-Georges Clouzot, December 2011.
• Tristan Dearden at Honi Soit on the death of Cahiers du Cinema, March 2020.
• Lisa Marlowe at The Irish Times on Truffaut and the French New Wave, May 2002.
• Mike D’Angelo at The A.V. Club on the most tense scene in The Wages of Fear, November 2010.
• Neil Smith at Games Radar on the challenge of measuring Clouzot against Hitchcock, September 2012.
• Sinéad Donohoe at The Reverse Gear on the difference between Hitchcock’s definitions of suspense and surprise, April 2015.
• Roger Ebert at The Chicago Sun Times reviews The Wages of Fear, March 1992.
• Pauline Kael reviews The Wages of Fear.
• Kitty Holland at The Irish Times on the debate around the prospect of the repatriation of the Book of Kells to Kells, June 2000.
• Alison Doody talks to The Irish Independent about her career, February 2016.
• Vincent Canby at The New York Times on the American reception to and edits of The Wages of Fear, October 1991.
• Dennis Lehane at Criterion on the legacy and themes of Wages of Fear, April 2009.
• Bosley Crowther at The New York Times reports on the premiere of The Wages of Fear from Paris, February 1955.
• Anya Jaremko-Greenwold at IndieWire on the challenges that Werner Herzog has faced in making his films, September 2015.
• Roger Ebert interviews Werner Herzog about his Amazon obsession for The Chicago Sun Times, September 1981.
• Jonathan Dawson at Senses of Cinema looks at the history of The Wages of Fear, November 2011.
• David Thomson at The Guardian celebrates The Wages of Fear as one of the best action movies of all time, October 2010.
• Mark Chalon Smith reviews the restored version of The Wages of Fear for The Los Angeles Times, March 1991.
• Eric Henderson reviews the DVD release of The Wages of Fear for Slant Magazine, April 2009.
• Jonathan Rosenbaum reviews The Wages of Fear for The Chicago Reader, March 1992.
• Robert Martin at Starburst on the homoeroticism of The Wages of Fear, October 2017.
• Jonathan Rosenbaum at The Chicago Reader on the censorship of The Wages of Fear, March 1992.
• Darren Mooney discusses Gilda with The Movie Palace, August 2018.
• Anton Bitel at Little White Lies on the sexual politics of Cruising, August 2019.
• William Friedkin talks to The New York Post about making The Boys in the Band, May 2018.
• Rita Kempley discusses The Wages of Fear at The Washington Post, November 1991.
• Cineapse discusses the relentless nihilism of The Wages of Fear, August 2014.
• Stephanie Buck at Timeline on the scars of growing up in the shadow the Cold War, August 2017.
• Douglas Birch at The Atlantic on how close the United States and Russia came to nuclear annihilation, May 2013.
• Marci McDonald at Macleans on the politics of Yves Montand, September 1984.
• Michael Dobbs at The Washington Post discusses Yves Montand’s “betrayal” of the French left, November 1983.
• The Telegraph offers an obituary for Yves Montand, November 1991.
• Follow The 250 on Twitter.
• Subscribe to The 250 on iTunes.
• Subscribe to The 250 on Stitcher.
• Listen to The 250 on Soundcloud.
• Listen to The 250 on Spotify.

Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: dynomite, explosion, film, french film, hollywood, la salaire de la peur, Movie, nihilism, South America, the new wave, tony black, wages of fear |