Fine. I watched “Wages of Fear” again, knowing there is no way in hell Amy will watch it with me. I saw it on the big screen in Chicago in one of those old theatres with the ceiling painted to look like stars. My friend and fellow ex-actor Mark Mendelsohn, who raved about it, went with me. The last time I saw it was around 1994 when my friends Tim and Thea came for a visit in New Orleans. We rented Wages while Amy was trapped on the couch with a bum ankle, cementing her hatred of the film. Still, my viewing tonight also confirms the notion of it as a classic pioneer in suspense.
Amy’s major gripe with and largest memory of the film is the poor depiction of women in the story. In predictable 50s French fashion, there are no women drivers of nitroglycerin-laden trucks trying to cap an oil derrick fire. However, my own recollection of the story — embellished by over a decade of recurring criticism of the film — was that the movie was filled with routine beatings and degradation of the lone female character in the story.
Without excusing the depiction or narrative choices in the film, I know why Amy has such a bad memory of the would-be girlfriend: In the first few frames, she’s treated like a dog. Literally. … We follow an ice cream vendor wending his way through town on a hot day, stopping at a tavern. One of the grumpy old out-of-work Germans trapped in the village starts pelting rocks (I guess there was no French Humane Association) at a pooch tied to the cart. In explanation, the grumpy German says he hates “mutts.” A few minutes later, a sexy Vera Clouzot (Linda) is on her hands and knees washing the tavern floor. Smiling in delight at a glance from Yves Montand, she crawls closer so he can reach around a post and pat her on the head. That carries quite a bit of weight in coloring the rest of the film.
While I’m pretty sure Amy still wouldn’t like the movie much, had she skipped the first 10 minutes Wages takes on a slightly different emphasis. There were some other women in the background, seeming normal enough. There’s even a small and apparently forgotten role of a local woman who rallies the town against the savage working conditions of the U.S. oil company, after an accident that took a few lives and casualties and ultimately served as the plot device for the rest of the film. I haven’t seen the remake with Roy Scheider [“Sorcerer” (1977)], but I’m guessing there aren’t any woman-as-dog metaphors. And it’s only 121 minutes long.
