I (excuse me, some guy I know) blogged some years back about Hollywood's horrible remakes. On The Other Hand, remakes are sometimes awesome, as I acknowledged once here in the annals of Cinematic Leisure. As a general rule, originals are good and remakes are bad. Sometimes, however, a remake comes along and redeems an awful original in its entirety. But the rarest of remakes is one of a great film that proves equally great with its own standout qualities.
Today, I acknowledge another original/remake duo that is well worth your time.
Wages of Fear (1953)
Henri-Geogres Clouzot was hard at working making excellent French films well before French New Wave set in (take that, Godard), and Wages of Fear is perhaps his best. (I have not seen all of Clouzot's films, but also highly recommend Le Corbeau (The Raven) (1943) and Diabolique (1955).) The film centers on four men, foreigners who are stuck in a South American village for various reasons. The only big industry is oil, and deep in the mountainous jungle a well has just ignited. The only way to stop it is to blow it up, and the company decides to send four men in two trucks on a delivery run with the explosives to do it.
The explosives are pure nitroglycerin.
For those unfamiliar with nitroglycerin, in its pure liquid form it's very powerful and unstable. It can be detonated via contact, like, say, a bad bump in the road. The men will have to drive very slowly and carefully over rough roads, keeping their distance from one another because otherwise if one blows up the other will too.
Long before the cinematography, sharp musical notes and other tricks of the trade that are now a staple of suspense, drama, action and horror films, these emotions are all largely driven by the acting in Wages of Fear. Desperate from the outset, all four characters quickly develop rivalries-- between the two trucks and within. Their cooperation is almost wholly driven by the basest self-interest, and as the journey proceeds their behavior becomes more and more depraved.
One could call it the French answer to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), but it's far darker: instead of one Bogart succumbing to fear, despair, and evil, we're treated to four.
Sorcerer (1977)
June 24, 1977 was not the day to release this movie. Or any movie, for that matter. A sci-fi film called Star Wars went into wide release in the weeks before, and was already a nationwide phenomenon. In other words, no one was talking about any other movies at the time, and despite it's amazingness Sorcerer did not fare well at the box office and has never quite grown to the cult status it rightfully deserves.
Sorcerer rounds out director William Friedkin's triple-play (or hat trick, if you will) in the 1970s, preceded by The French Connection (1971) and The Exorcist (1973). The only thing wrong with this movie is its title. That's it. According to IMDB's user-submitted trivia section, Friedkin "has stated that the strange title of 'Sorcerer' refers to the evil wizard of fate." According to this reviewer, that's like nails on the artsy-fartsy chalkboard. Whew.
But aside from its unfortunate title, Sorcerer just plays. Its plot matches Wages of Fear almost to a tee, but with some notable exceptions. First, unlike Wages of Fear, we're treated to opening scenes that give backgrounds on all four characters, setting up some devious fellows, all of whom have good reason to be hiding in the last place anyone would look. There's an armed robber, a hitman, a terrorist, and an embezzler. They want the big money they'll get for transporting the explosives, but they also want citizenship to prevent extradition. To keep things modernized, they won't be hauling pure nitroglycerin, but rather dynamite that was not properly stored and is just as dangerous. They encounter many of the same obstacles along the way, but they're produced with a lot bigger budget.
Remember five paragraphs ago when I was praising Wages of Fear for its pre-special effects intensity? Well, flip that: when special effects intensity is done right, that's the magic of the movies. At one point in Sorcerer the trucks must drive across a rickety old bridge during an intense storm. This is easily one of the most amazing scenes I've ever seen. If only for this scene, the film is worth watching:
Dude.
Once again there is excellent acting, but Friedkin focuses on the obstacles and with some exceptions there's far more honor among thieves between the characters than in Wages of Fear. This works just as well.
I should close by noting that Sorcerer's score is by Tangerine Dream and yet again gives the 'ol synthesizer its due (YouTube is always good for a montage sample-- score!)
So there it is. I don't know which one I like more, but I know they're both excellent. The few, the proud, the exceptions to the remake rule.
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