Hell Drivers

Blacklisted Hollywood director Cy Enfield (here credited as C. Rucker Enfield) co-scripted this poor man's version of Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1952 classic, The Wages of Fear, with John Kruse, the writer of the original short story. Stanley Baker plays Joe 'Tom' Yateley, an ex-con trying to leave his past behind. He gets a job with a trucking company which transports gravel and soon gets involved in a deadly competition with another employee, Red (Patrick McGoohan) to be the fastest driver.

Only the Brits could equate anything so prosaic as driving a quarry truck with Hell - talk about a storm in a teacup! - and sorry Cy, speeding up the film doesn't help disguise the banality. The cast is top drawer for its time, if a somewhat odd assemblage, including Peggy Cummins, Sid James and Alfie Bass the latter two best known for their music hall comedic style, Sean Connery (check out those eyebrows!) in his 3rd screen appearance and Herbert Lom who is truly awful as Gino, an Italian navvy.

 

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