50's Foreign Horror Part Two

THE WAGES OF FEAR

(1953)

Dir - Henri-Georges Clouzot

Overall: GREAT

The first of filmmaker Henri-Georges Clouzot's one-two punch of outstanding French thrillers, The Wages of Fear, (Le Salaire de la peur), deals directly with man's perceived perseverance over nature, fueled by desperation.  Though it is not a thriller in the conventional sense in that characters are not deliberately trying to murder each other, the level of suspense building that Clouzot accomplishes is on a level seldom maintained in cinema.  An adaptation of Georges Arnaud's novel of the same name, it spends the better part of two-hours exclusively focusing on four, down on their luck men and their three-hundred mile trek on treacherous roads, driving trucks filled to the brim with nitroglycerine that can literally explode at a moment's notice.  Considering that such a job pays a considerable sum that would hypothetically allow for each of them to either flee or live prosperously in their completely isolated, corrupt, and poor town, the stakes are preposterously high which makes their ticking clock tempting of fate almost impossibly gripping to behold.  Similarly to his follow-up Les Diaboliques, Clouzot does not utilize any incidental music which forces the audience to squirm on the edge of their seat with no typical movie manipulation for comfort.

 

LAKE OF THE DEAD

(1958)

Dir - Kåre Bergstrøm

Overall: GOOD

 

A rare work of quasi-folk horror in Norwegian cinema for the period, Lake of the Dead, (De dødes tjer, Lake of the Damned), emphasizes mood and spookiness effectively with its simple, isolated setting.  For the first half, everyone on screen merely takes turns innocently talking about scary things before any are actually portrayed, but even with its small crop of characters merrily vacationing in a spacious cabin in the Østerdal forest, director/co-writer Kåre Bergstrøm still manages to hint at a supernatural underlining.  Startling moments are few and far between, yet they are effective due to such an unassuming presentation.  The black and white cinematography by Ragnar Sørensen is lovely as it frames many scenes in darkness and mere candlelight,with even the obvious day for night moments conveying the appropriate eerie calm.  An adaptation of André Bjerke's novel of the same name, (Bjerke also appearing in the film), it does rely heavily on people sitting around while patiently and logically explaining everything that is going on or is presumed to be going on, but the seventy-six minute running time still feels brisk and the ending playfully hints that all is not so psychologically explainable.

THE HEAD

(1959)

Dir - Victor Trivas

Overall: MEH

The last film to be directed by screenwriter Victor Trivas, The Head, (Des Satans nackte Sklavin, Die Nackte und der Satan), is the West German precursor to the infamous, American B-movie The Brain That Wouldn't Die which was released by AIP three years later.  Unfortunately, the two films share more in common than just their basic premise of faux-science being able to miraculously keep a severed head alive via electronic wires and some liquid, since this is likewise some pretty dull stuff.  The concept of a mad scientist doing mad scientist things because movies had been a well-trotted trope for decades at this point and the lab assistant gone bonkers antagonist here is ultimately just crazy for the sake of being crazy and hardly makes for a compelling bad guy.  Dialog wise, it is all rambling tripe and the very few scenes that we get of Michel Simon's talking head defying the laws of physics are just him grumbling in a haze while begging for death.  Elsewhere, men and women exchange expository information while sitting or standing in rooms with painfully long stretches going by where nothing excitable transpires at all.  Trivas was hardly a compelling director and when the movie is not spinning its own wheels, the stock cinematography and, (oddly), poor sound design also fail to help matters.