FAQ

Yes. The novel "Le salaire de la peur" ("The Wages of Fear") was written by French author Georges Arnaud in 1950.

They need the explosive to blow out a burning oil well. There was an accident at the plant, and now they need to extinguish the fire. It's a common method to blow out burning oil wells by explosions. The explosion consumes all the oxygen around the oil well.

The movie doesn't give a definitive answer to the actual cause of the explosion. However, because nitro is extremely volatile and explosive, it could have been caused by any number of things, e.g. a bump or pothole in the road, veering too sharply or quickly in one direction, etc. It was said in the film, "They probably didn't even know what happened."

Upon its release the movie was shown in a censored version in several countries. In Germany, for example, a version aired that was approx. 17 minutes shorter than the original French Version.