Trivia / The Wages of Fear

• Adaptational Displacement: While the film has a solid fan following and is well remembered not only by the film aficionados and historians, hardly anyone remembers the once-popular novel by Georges Arnaud on which it was based.
• Troubled Production: Filming was beset by a series of misfortunes as life imitated art. Where to begin?...
  • It all started well. Henri-Georges Clouzot managed to secure the rights for the novel's adaptation and then-rising star, Yves Montand, in the leading role. Next, Clouzot started scouting appropriate locations in Spain. Just when he found one, after a few months of searching, Montand refused to go there (his then-wife, Simone Signoret, was strongly opposed to Francisco Franco's politics). The crew managed to make an exhaustive photodocumentation and the small town was meticulously rebuilt in southern France. Then, Jean Gabin suddenly pulled out (he thought that his fans would dislike his part as a 'coward'); Charles Vanel was hired at the last minute.
  • The shooting started in late August of 1951. And the troubles came en masse. The September of 1951 was particularly capricious: many days were lost due to rain, and sometimes a sunny day could turn into a heavily rainy one within a few minutes, endangering the equipment and electrics. The two trucks, playing a central role in the movie, were initially quite solid and dependable, but after some raining they started bogging down. The rains made the ground wet, causing camera cranes to suddenly collapse and damage the sets several times. Just when the crew managed to get some control over everything, lead actress Vera Clouzot was admitted into the ICU (she suffered from major heart problems which, unfortunately, claimed her life in 1960). Just as she was released from the hospital, Henri-Georges Clouzot broke his ankle. Adding Clouzot's trademark perfectionist attitude and multiple retakes, it is no surprise that the production already was 50 million francs over budget and way over schedule when they had to quit shooting as the autumn rains set in. During the next few months, Clouzot managed to secure some funds and the shooting continued in the summer of 1952. This time, the only major accident occurred when both Montand and Vanel ended up in the hospital due to conjunctivitis after a few days of filming in the pool of crude oil.
  • It all paid off when the movie, finally released after months of editing in the spring of 1953, turned out to be a major hit both critically and commercially (it was the first picture to win both the Golden Bear in Berlin and the Palme d'Or in Cannes). It was initially less enthusiastically received in the US due to the movie being re-cut (some key plot points were eliminated because they were considered 'anti-American'), but the complete version was one of the most critically acclaimed pictures of the 1950s.

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