Cy Endfield, “Hell Drivers” (1957)
An interesting and very much under-rated example of 1950s British noir / social realism, “Hell Drivers” is probably better known for its cast, mostly unknown when the film was made, but later to carve out stellar careers in UK cinema and television and even beyond in Hollywood. Stanley Baker plays Tom Yately, an ex-prisoner looking for work: he turns up at Hawtell Trucks looking for a driving job in haulage. The boss Cartley (William Hartnell, of later “Doctor Who” fame”) takes him on and Yately quickly acquires a reputation as an excellent driver and diligent worker. He is befriended by Gino (Herbert Lom, of later fame in the Pink Panther series of movies) who warns him against competing with fellow truckie and foreman Red (Patrick McGoohan, of later fame in many TV series) who is proud of his record of averaging 18 deliveries of gravel a day between Hawtell Trucks and a local quarry. Through Gino, Cartley’s femme fatale secretary Lucy (Peggy Cummins) and the local boarding-house mistress, Yately ingratiates himself into the local community but quickly comes up against the tight little social network within Hawtell Trucks that’s headed by Red. Yately refuses to accept his place at the bottom of Red’s hierarchy and the other truckies begin to bully him. Lucy develops romantic feelings for Yately and he feels rather conflicted between his feelings for her and loyalty towards Gino who regards Lucy as his girlfriend.
An intense rivalry quickly develops between Yately and Red over who is the better driver and who delivers more loads from the quarry each day. The bullying intensifies and Yately and Gino plot to escape the work. Gino swaps truck numbers with Yately. Yately soon leaves work but hears news of Gino having an accident in truck 13 (his old truck). When Yately later realises that the accident was meant for him and Lucy tells him of the arrangement between Cartley and Red to fleece him and the other truck drivers of the pay they’re entitled to, Yately determines to expose the two men’s racket – but Red and Cartley have other ideas for him …
The tight budget for the film explains various aspects of the film, such as the emphasis on character development at the expense of the rather basic plot and the very patchy and abrupt conclusion after the climactic chase scene through an abandoned limestone quarry. Most of the special effects budget was used up in the spectacular crash scene in which a truck falls into a hole and explodes into flames. Some of the dialogue and the scripting can be mawkish and comic, especially in a hospital death scene, and the romance between Lucy and Yately looks a little too Hollywood. The cast is excellent: Baker acquits himself well as the ex-con, very much his own man and made of stern inner moral fibre – you wonder how he came to be in prison in the first place. McGoohan as the main villain oozes evil from every pore and through his cigarette which he constantly chews. Herbert Lom steals much of the show with his sensitive portrayal of Gino: a silent scene in which he sees Lucy and Yately together and seems to be upset at what he witnesses is a highlight. The minor roles in the cast are taken up by actors who would go on to become mainstream and cult stars of the acting firmament: David McCallum, Gordon Jackson, Sid James, Jill Ireland (the future wife of McCallum and Hollywood actor Charles Bronson) and Sean Connery with more hair than he would ever have again are just some of the names who appear.
The Dodge trucks themselves are no slouches either in the acting department: they look cheap and loosely welded together but hold their own as Formula One manqué racers burning up country lanes, nearly taking on a cow or two, tearing up greenery and leaving behind a trail of flattened badgers, hedgehogs and the odd rural vicar or two. Early in the film when Cartley explains to Yately what he has to do to stay in the job, we learn what to expect: the drivers have to break the speed limits and wear the consequences if caught; they must repair the trucks themselves; and the high casualty rate is par for the course as part of the high staff turnover. The police know their place and stay out of the way. One early scene suggests that only local gangsters dare to challenge the truckies for rulership of the roads. The genteel world of Agatha Christie’s country-house mysteries with its neat and tidy resolutions and clean-ups of murder and mayhem that restore order and tradition, has no place here in this grimy working-class universe of Fifties rock’n’roll, fisticuffs and drifters and other outsiders exploited by others only one rung above them in a vast and mostly indifferent social hierarchy: one that ignores them all yet relies on them for essential post-war reconstruction work.
Cinematography is excellent: viewers get driver viewpoints of how dangerous the work is and the use of rear shots and unusual angles helps to drive up tension and the intense rivalry between Yately and Red.
The plot strides ever onwards at a cracking pace and the escalation of tension is steady and well-handled. The film portrays class tension in microcosm: the town-hall dance scenes show the antagonism between the middle class and working class participants as working class men snatch up middle class women for dances and a fight breaks out over who can dance with whom. There’s good social commentary on the changing roles of women, the plight of immigrants, ex-prisoners and other outsiders trying to gain acceptance into an insular and hierarchical world while trying to evade a past that catches up with them, and the pathetic scenario of working-class people exploiting others and putting their lives in danger just for a bit of extra dough and what that says about the get-rich-quick mentality bred by an oppressive social system.
The film has historic value as a snapshot of English culture in transition from a staid conservative society in which everyone knew his/her place to one in which social mobility became easier and more available to wider sections of society and old ways of thinking and behaving were being discarded. The fact that several actors in the film went on to fame and glory in very different ways underlines this transition.