The 1953 French thriller directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot about trucks carrying nitroglycerin is The Wages of Fear.
Clouzot co-wrote and co-produced the film, adapting Georges Arnaud's 1950 novel. It follows four financially desperate European men stranded in a remote South American oil settlement. When an oil-well fire erupts, an American company recruits them to drive two trucks loaded with nitroglycerin across rough mountain roads to extinguish the blaze.
The explosive cargo makes every bump, turn and mechanical problem terrifying: the men must handle the trucks carefully because vibration or impact could detonate the nitroglycerin. The film's suspense comes less from conventional action than from exhaustion, greed, fear and the unequal conditions that make dangerous labor seem like the only escape.
Yves Montand and Charles Vanel lead the cast. The film is sometimes translated as The Salary of Fear, but The Wages of Fear is the standard English title. It is also commonly confused with Clouzot's later mystery thriller Les Diaboliques, which has a completely different plot and no nitroglycerin convoy.