Hell Drivers

Unless I'm pushed that is.

Ex-convict Tom Yately snags himself a job driving for haulage company Hawletts. The drivers are paid per trip, something that spurs the men on to drive faster and be more reckless than your average employee. Making few friends at Hawletts, Tom uncovers shifty dealings between brutal foreman, Red, and Hawletts manager, Cartley. Something that ups the stakes considerably more as Tom and Red clash on and off the road.

A true British hard boiler is Hell Drivers, a pic that is chocked full of machismo. Who would have thought that a film about lorry drivers transporting gravel could be so exciting? Directed by Cy Endfield (Zulu), Hell Drivers has something of the quintessential working class about it, which is goo...

Stanley Baker is at the top of his game in this drama. Recently released from prison, "Tom" struggles to find decent work until he alights on an haulage company run by "Cartley" (William Hartnell) who doesn't care so much about formalities and history, just about deliveries - the more and quicker the merrier. He joins a disparate group of colleagues where he befriends "Gino' (Herbert Lom) and antagonises the head honcho "Red" (Patrick McGoohan). As the story develops, he and the latter man become more and more competitive with increasingly perilous consequences. Cy Endfield and Geoffrey Unsworth work well together to create an intense and well photographed story of a rivalry that is lively and mobile for most of the film. Whilst some of tha...