The Wages of Fear Blu-ray

The Wages of Fear

 (1953)

Action | Adventure | Drama | Thriller



In a squalid South American oil town, four desperate men sign on for a suicide mission to drive trucks loaded with nitroglycerin over a treacherous mountain route. As they ferry their explosive cargo to a faraway oil fire, each bump and jolt tests their courage, their friendship, and their nerves. The result is one of the greatest thrillers ever committed to celluloid, a white- knuckle ride from France’s legendary master of suspense, Henri-Georges Clouzot.

For more details about The Wages of Fear on Blu-ray, see The Wages of Fear Blu-ray Review

The Wages of Fear Blu-ray, Video Quality

 


Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.37:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Henri-Georges Clouzot's The Wages of Fear arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion.

This new HD transfer for Clouzot's film offers a number of key improvements in terms of detail, clarity and color-saturation. The actual print is also notably healthy - plenty of debris, scratches and specks have been removed. This being said, there are obvious limitations to this print that certainly affect contrast and brightness (what this means is that certain scenes could look slightly sharper). Still, this Blu-ray is a substantial upgrade over the old SDVD release of the film. However, those of you with digital projectors will likely be the party that appreciates the 1080p transfer the most as the key areas where the Blu-ray excels are far easier to appreciate on large screens. Finally, I did not detect any traces of post-production filtering to report here. (NoteThis is a Region-A "locked" release which you will not be able to play on native Region-B players. You need to have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access the disc's content.

The Wages of Fear Blu-ray, Audio Quality

 


Criterion have supplied a French uncompressed monaural audio track for Henri-Georges Clouzot's The Wages of Fear. Generally speaking, this is a solid audio track that does justice to the film. Obviously, it has been meticulously restored and, as far as I am concerned, this is the best quality that could have been achieved with the existing film elements (I actually have a very old French DVD of this film and did a few quick tests to see how the Blu-ray compares to it). Specifically, the dialog is clear, very easy to follow, and without any dropouts, hissing, or cracks that I could detect. For the record, Criterion have provided optional English subtitles for the main feature.