The Wages of Fear

film by Clouzot [1953]
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Also known as: “Le Salaire de la peur”
French title:
Le Salaire de la peur

The Wages of Fear, French thriller film, released in 1953, that was directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot. It was based on a 1950 novel by Georges Arnaud and is considered one of the seminal films of French cinema. A fire is raging in a South American oil well that is owned by an American company, and the only way to extinguish the petroleum-based conflagration is to use nitroglycerin. Transporting the volatile substance to the well is considered too dangerous for the company’s union workers, so four desperate locals (all of them transplanted Europeans) are lured by the promise of $2,000 per ...(100 of 321 words)