Hell Drivers (1957)
I love old black and white British films. I was brought up on them; going to the local flea pit every Friday night to watch a programme that included a main feature, a cartoon, a newsreel, some trailers and a supporting feature film. It was this latter, usually a black and white crime film, which was often more enjoyable than the main film. Watching them now fifty or more years later it’s like taking a peek into the past. Location shots of re-developed places. Studio sets of small working-class homes that remind me of my childhood.
Anyway, enough of the misty-eyed nostalgia. ‘Hell Drivers’ stars Stanley Baker as an ex-prisoner trying to go straight by getting a job as a driver for a gravel haulage firm and comes up against Patrick McGoohan as the mad bad Irishman who will do anything to keep his record number of ‘runs’ a day intact. There are fights, love interest, crashes, pathos and lorries; what more could you want?
Lorries! Connery, James, McGoohan and Baker
The cast of this film is like a who’s who of 1950’s/60’s British actors - Herbert Lom (‘Human Jungle’ TV series and Pink Panther films), Peggy Cummins (‘Curse of the Demon’), William Hartnell (‘Brighton Rock’, ‘Dr Who’, ‘The Army Game’ TV series), Sid James (Carry On films, ‘The Lavender Hill Mob’, ‘Bless this House’ TV series), Jill Ireland (‘Robbery Under Arms’, ‘Death Wish II’, married to Charles Bronson), Alfie Bass (‘The Army Game’ TV series, ‘A Tale of Two Cities’, ‘The Bespoke Overcoat’), Gordon Jackson (‘The Ipcress File’, ‘The Professionals’ TV series, ‘The Great Escape’), David McCallum (‘A Night to Remember’, ‘The Great Escape’, ‘The Man From Uncle’ TV series, ‘NCIS’ TV series) and some bloke called Sean Connery.
My only bug-bear with ‘Hell Drivers’ is the use of speeded-up shots of the lorries. The top speed of a fully laden 5 tonner would probably have been about 40mph which wouldn’t have looked all that exciting even on the bends, so they under-cranked the camera and, hey presto, Baker and McGoohan are barrelling along at 80 or more. It’s just that they appear to have the road holding of an F1 racing car on the corners.
If you are into old films, especially 1930,s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s British fare then you could do worse than take a look at TalkingPicturesTV (Freeview channel 81, Sky 343, Freesat 306 or Youview 81). It’s both a goldmine and a cesspit of old films. You might catch a gem (‘Hell Drivers’) or a film that you are only watching to catch a glimpse of the Graham Bond Organisation but even that can’t keep you from switching off (the unbelievably dire ‘Gonks Go Beat’).
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