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Tag Archives: Trucking

They Drive by Night (1940)

93m; U.S.

Director: Raoul Walsh

Cast:  George Raft, Humphrey Bogart and Ann Sheridan

Synopsis (IMDB): Brothers Paul and Joe Fabrini run a trucking business in California mainly shipping fruit from farms to the markets in Los Angeles. They struggle to make ends meet in the face of corrupt businessmen and intense competition. They are forced into driving long hours and one night pick-up waitress Cassie Hartley who’s just quit her job at a truck stop. The three of them witness the death of a mutual acquaintance when he falls asleep at the wheel. This has a profound effect on Paul and Joe and they become determined to find a way to make the business pay so they can quit.

 
 

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Unionism: From Journeymen Associations to the Teamsters (1980)

29m; U.S.

Synopsis: Educational film tracing the history of labor and the Teamsters.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Labor History

 

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The Wages of Fear (1953)


131m; France

Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot

Cast: Yves Montand, Charles Vanel and Peter van Eyck

Synopsis: In a remote part of Venezuela right after World War II various European emigres look for work in the oil fields.  When a giant fire erupts, several of these men are hired to transport large stocks of nitroglycerine, which involves traversing a long stretch of treacherous terrain.  Fantastic acting and a truly suspenseful film.

(NYT) Where to watch: Kanopy and the Criterion Channel; available for rental on Amazon and iTunes.

Few jobs are as harrowing as the one four desperate expatriates undertake in this thrilling film directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot.

Men too broke to escape a sweaty Latin American village leap at the chance to earn $2,000 apiece driving an emergency shipment of nitroglycerin 300 miles to extinguish an oil inferno for an American company. The company, circumventing its union drivers and rules, provides open-bed trucks that lack even rudimentary safety features like shock absorbers.

One driver is Yves Montand in a breakthrough role, cigarette hanging from his lip and kerchief rakishly tied around his neck, as he grips the juddering steering wheel along treacherous jungle roads through this relentless, heart-stopping journey of teamwork, cowardice and betrayal. HELEN T. VERONGOS

 
 

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