Hell Drivers
Madman
R4 DVD
1947
B&W
This
classic drama is as good as anything the Americans put out just after World War
II and was a return to mainstream films for the Rank organization. It is rather
pleasing to see some of these older films being released again – not all the
old stuff was blockbuster material but many were very good films.
It
carries a rather American plot. The local manager of a lorry company hauling
gravel for a housing development is fiddling the books by claiming more drivers
than he really has. The drivers he does have on duty must work many loads per
day to make up the quota. Conditions are dangerous, the trucks are deathtraps and the drivers must run their eight ton lorries at around 50 miles per hour to meet their target.
There is a leading driver, Red, who is in on the fraud but keeps the other
drivers in line.
Into
the group comes Tom, who has just done a year in prison. He befriends one of
the other drivers, Gino, an ex-prisoner of war, who explains to him what is
going on. Sooner or later Tom must confront Red who is becoming more reckless
and endangering the other drivers. Red doesn’t like being challenged and a
battle breaks out over who is the top driver. At first Tom’s truck is sabotaged
but it grows serious when Gino takes Tom’s truck and is killed in an accident
meant to kill Tom instead. Tom is now fighting to save his own life and avenge
his friend’s death.
The
action is well done in spite of some obviously sped-up driving scenes. There is
some competent model work as well. There is the compulsory sub-plot love story
which does not intrude too much on the basic plot.
It
is the cast list that is interesting. It is almost a Who’s Who of British
actors of the time. Stanley Baker stars as Tom and the villain Red is Patrick McGoohan. Sid James appears as one of the drivers and
surprisingly he looks just as old as he did during the Carry On films thirty
years later. The man must have been born looking old and wrinkled. Watch out
for William Hartnell (the first Doctor Who), a very
young David McCallum (Man From U.N.C.L.E.), Sean
Connery (James Bond), Gordon Jackson – the list just goes on. There is also a
REALLY young Jill Ireland who
married McCallum then later became Charles Bronson’s wife. All
deliver good performances and make the most of a good screenplay.
Hell
Drivers is a good action film apart from its interesting historical aspects. It
showed what the Brits could do when they tried. It is unfortunate that they
shortly got swamped by Hollywood output.
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