Le salaire de la peur 1953

Dave Kehr, Chicago Tribune: Turning the screws with a relentlessness that impresses even in this age of the ruthless, high-tech thriller, Clouzot strings together situations of vividly, almost sadistically imagined danger. Read more

Bosley Crowther, New York Times: The excitement derives entirely from the awareness of nitroglycerine and the gingerly, breathless handling of it. You sit there waiting for the theatre to explode. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Hitch's bomb-under-the-table suspense formula burnished to an expert sheen. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: A significant influence on Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, this grueling pile driver of a movie will keep you on the edge of your seat. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: The kind of motion picture for which commonplace phrases like 'white-knuckle tension ride' have been coined. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The film's extended suspense sequences deserve a place among the great stretches of cinema. Read more

Time Out: A reeking bandana movie, with all the expected thrills, but a vision of men as scurrying insects with no redeeming features. Read more

Variety: A harrowing odyssey of four derelicts inching two trucks loaded with nitro-glycerine over a tortuous terrain puts this in the strong meat department with a downbeat theme of fear and its manifestations. Read more

Rita Kempley, Washington Post: An expertly directed, personally felt film. Read more