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Hell Drivers (UK, 1956); Impulse (1954)

Hell Drivers (1956)
August 1, 2014 - 7:30 pm
Billy Wilder Theater
In-person: 
author Alan K. Rode.

Print courtesy of the BFI.

Hell Drivers (UK, 1956)

Directed by Cy Endfield.

Produced by the Rank Organization, Hell Drivers was a turning point for director Cy Endfield.  Endfield (and Joseph Losey) regular Stanley Baker plays an ex-convict who takes a job as a truck driver at a gravel haulage company, but quickly grows outraged by the dangerous conditions and corruption he encounters.  Filmed with brutal realism, Hell Drivers combines suspense with social analysis, and features a strong supporting cast.

The Rank Organisation Film Productions Ltd. Producer: A. Benjamin Fisz. Based on a short story by John Kruse. Screenwriter: Cy Endfield, John Kruse. Cinematographer: Geoffrey Unsworth. Editor: John D. Guthridge. Cast: Stanley Baker, Herbert Lom, Peggy Cummins, Patrick McGoohan, William Hartnell.

35mm, b/w, 108 min.

Impulse (1954)

Directed by Cy Endfield.  

Impulse, which Cy Endfield directed (as Charles de Lautour) and co-wrote (as Jonathan Roche), throws its American protagonist into two foreign worlds: the provincial village where he lives with his English wife, and the London underworld to which he is lured by a femme fatale.  A low-budget B production, Impulse succeeds in fusing classic noir themes with an outsider’s view of British society that Endfield credited to his still “alienated eye.”

Tempean Films. Producer: Robert S. Baker, Monty Berman. Screenwriter: Cy Endfield, Lawrence Huntington. Cinematographer: Jonah Jones. Editor: Jack Slade. Cast: Arthur Kennedy, Constance Smith, Joy Shelton, Jack Allen, James Carney.

16mm, b/w, 80 min.

Part of: 
Hollywood Exiles in Europe