An ex-con looking for work, Tom Yately (Stanley Baker) manages to find a job with Hawlett's Trucking Company. The job sounds simple enough; transporting truckloads of gravel from one location to another 12 miles away. There's a catch though. The small fleet of truck drivers compete on a daily basis to see who can make the most runs with a minimum number of runs required. The end result is a drive at breakneck speeds around a twisting, winding course where safety is a secondary thought. Tom just wants to do a job and make some money, but he immediately clashes with Red (Patrick McGoohan), the fleet foreman and resident champ that no one can touch. Tom tries to avoid the macho head games, avoid the confrontation and do his job, but Red isn't going to allow it.
The Music Box Theatre recently had a screening of this realistic, dark drama from director Cy Endfield which I, of course, was not able to go to. Thanks you On Demand for having it hidden away, allowing me to catch up with it! 'Drivers' has a low-budget, ultra-realistic feel that plays like a documentary more than a feature film. Filmed in a grainy black and white, that dreary English sky never looked so....dreary? I know, I'm a master wordsmith. It's a nasty, unpleasant, me-first world presented here. If a little predictable at times, it's still a movie I enjoyed a lot.
What originally caught my attention here was the casting, an impressive list of actors who would go on to bigger and better things in the coming years. An underrated actor who never quite got his due, Baker is an ideal star. It's not your typical hero role for a 1957 flick. He's quiet, a man of few words but resolute in his word and genuinely trying to put his checkered criminal past (talked about, no actual details) behind him. However, he's also not one to take any crap from a rival. The weaker parts of the story have Baker's Tom interacting with Lucy (Peggy Cummins), Hawlett's secretary, who's involved with another driver but likes Tom just the same. Again, it's not your typical lovey-dovey relationship -- far from it and thankfully so -- but these scenes take away from the real focus of the story, the epically dangerous truck driving.
Baker is a good start, but 'Drivers' is far from done. McGoohan is a crazy presence as Red, the almost primal main rival for Baker's Tom. With his crazy eyes, wild, bushy eyebrows and ripped up leather vest, he looks like he'd like to eat his rivals, not just beat them. Herbert Lom is a scene-stealer as Gino, a former Italian P.O.W. who decided to stay in England after WWII. A gentleman with some brains, he bonds quickly with Tom, forming a fast friendship. Oh, there's more. The Hawlett drivers include Sean Connery, Sid James, Gordon Jackson, Alfie Bass, Wensley Pithey and George Murcell. Also look for Wilfrid Lawson as Ed, Hawlett's mechanic who also tests potential drivers' ability (watch Baker's test HERE). There's even small parts for David McCallum as Jimmy, Tommy's younger brother, and Jill Ireland as a waitress at the restaurant all the drivers eat at.
A movie called 'Hell Drivers' about truck drivers transporting gravel certainly didn't sound like the most exciting background for a story, but Enfield's script (along with documentarian John Kruse) keeps things moving. The footage of the trucks driving along the roads has obviously been sped up, but it's still pretty cool. These big lorries roaring down the country roads, zipping in and around traffic, shortcuts through fields and quarries, it all ends up being solid action. A straightforward, enjoyable dramatic story with a more than worthwhile cast. Definitely seek this one out.
Hell Drivers (1957): ***/****
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