THE WAGES OF FEAR (1953)

In a remote South American town (if you can even call this small collection of shacks connected by a dirt road, a town), a group of non-citizens melt the day away dreaming under the smoldering sun of a way out of this hell. The only way out is by plane, but with no money and no jobs they might as well be waiting on Falkor from THE NEVERENDING STORY to come and pick them up.

Things look grim for the guys, but then a stranger, Jo, an ex-gangster, comes to town and soon the group is divided. Most of the men hate the newcomer, but fellow Frenchman Mario (Yves Montand) mistakenly thinks that Jo is his ticket out and starts kissing up to Jo and even turns his back on his friends. At the same time, an oil fire erupts 300 miles away and the oil company needs a truckload of nitroglycerin delivered in order to put it out. The job is too dangerous for the company to risk using their own unionized men so they offer the job to the bums who hang out at the cantina. Two men to a truck. Two trucks and $2,000 per person upon delivery.

THE WAGES OF FEAR is a brilliant film and one of the key elements to its success is it takes the time at the beginning of the film to build up the characters so that way when disaster strikes we're firmly invested in them and actually care what happens to them. It also doesn't hurt that there's so many talented actors onscreen, especially Yves Montand.

Anyway, it's a great film, masterful direction and adapted script by Henri-Georges Clouzot, beautiful photography, great acting by everybody and Vera Clouzot was absolutely beautiful. Even many years later, THE WAGES OF FEAR is still has the power to excite. Highly recommended.

Depressing fun fact: Due to McCarthyism, THE WAGES OF FEAR was branded as Communist propaganda because it showed American oil companies as being unfair to it's S. American workers.  Variety ran a headline calling it "Red-Tainted" and when it was finally released in America it had to be trimmed by 50 minutes!!!

STARDUST MEMORIES (1980)

Sandy Bates (Allen) is a successful filmmaker who is completely stressed out with burden of success (leeches, pestering fans, strains on relationships, fake people, etc.), but worst of all he's unhappy. He's invited to a weekend film festival of his movies and during the festival he can't get a moments peace from the fans (one gets into his room late at night) and while trying to salvage his relationship with Isobel he finds himself attracted to the damaged Daisy (the wonderful Jessica Harper) but also haunted by memories of his past love Dorrie.

STARDUST MEMORIES is one of those films that gets even better with repeat viewings. I'm most definitely not a Allen expert, but I feel that a lot of people don't really see SM correctly. I have nothing to back up my theory but I believe (and I don't think this is a spoiler) that if you pay attention at the beginning of the film Bates is dreaming about Dorrie when the maid screams. He runs into the kitchen and sees the dead rabbit. At that point he looks at it and he goes into another dream. It immediately cuts to him arriving at the film festival (that he already stated he wasn't going to) and everybody is exaggerated and grotesque. It's all a fantasy. Then later, still in the fantasy, his fondest memory could very well be a scene from one of his movies. We never really get enough information about his relationship with Dorrie to tell whether it's real or not, but I like to think that it is a scene from a movie. Which is sad when you think about it...his fondest memory is a scene from a movie.

If you are a fan of Cinema then you owe it to yourself to watch STARDUST MEMORIES. It's better than I could ever express and a nice stepping stone into the films of Bergman and Fellini. Highly recommended.

Sharon Stone's film debut.

I might be out on a limb here, but is this scene a nod to WISE BLOOD?