Rent Hell Drivers (1957)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- When ex-con Tom Yately (Stanley Baker) signs up as a driver for Hawlett's, he uncovers shady dealings between the manager and the viciously ambitious head driver - the drivers are paid per trip, with a bonus system encouraging them to drive at reckless speeds and take dangerous risks. The stakes are raised when a fatal accident claims the life of Tom's only workplace ally, and he vows to take revenge.
- Actors:
- Stanley Baker, Herbert Lom, Peggy Cummins, Patrick McGoohan, William Hartnell, Wilfrid Lawson, Sidney James, Jill Ireland, Alfie Bass, Gordon Jackson, David McCallum, Sean Connery, Wensley Pithey, George Murcell, Marjorie Rhodes, Vera Day, Beatrice Varley, Robin Bailey, John Miller, Jerry Stovin
- Directors:
- Cy Endfield
- Producers:
- Benjamin Fisz
- Writers:
- John Kruse, Cy Endfield
- Others:
- C Raker Endfield
- Aka:
- Hard Drivers
- Studio:
- Network
- Genres:
- Action & Adventure, Classics, Drama, Thrillers
- Collections:
- Getting to Know..., Getting to Know: Sidney James, inema Paradiso's 2023 Centenary Club: Part 2, A Brief History of Film...
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 20/03/2017
- Run Time:
- 108 minutes
- Languages:
- English Dolby Digital 1.0
- Subtitles:
- English
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Widescreen 1.66:1
- Colour:
- B & W
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Commentary with Sound Assistant Harry Fairbairn and Journalist Andrew Robertson
- Theatrical Trailer
- Look in on 'Hell Drivers'
- The Stanley Baker Story
- Full Screen Ahead
- Galleries and PDF's
- Danger Man with Patrick McGoohan: Loyalty Always Pays
- Stanley Baker Archive Interview (1960's)
- Who Killed Lamb? with Stanley Baker
- Stanley Baker Plaque News Footage
- 'Return to the Rhondda' Documentary
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Reviews (1) of Hell Drivers
British Trucker Noir. - Hell Drivers review by Steve
Unpretentious social realist crime film from Cy Endfield, one of the directors who pitched up in the UK after being forced out of Hollywood by the communist witch hunt. His early productions in this country were formula cheapies released under a pseudonym.
For this British classic, he went back to his own name and politics. It's a proletariat story about how the workers fight each other and the bosses exploit their division. It was surely influenced by Henri-Georges Clouzot's gorgeous, fatalistic trucker-noir The Wages of Fear. This isn't in that class, but it stands comparison with any of Hollywood's haulage melodramas.
There is an unbelievable cast from top to bottom, Banks to Peters. Patrick McGoohan and the great Stanley Baker excel as the toughest maniacs in the drivers pool, half way between a bonus and oblivion. But Sean Connery is in there too, and a hard to recognise Jill Ireland. Herbert Lom, Peggy Cummins, William Hartnell. It goes on, and on.
The exciting truck chases are extremely well filmed. There's a low budget, but lots of compelling action, and its political message still stands. It seems to have developed a cult following. It's a key entry among many excellent British noir and gangster films made after WWII.