a review of 千惊万险

FLOPUARY #7: I think I'll need another viewing of each film before I'm ready to fully compare this to WAGES OF FEAR, but for right now I'm putting this one just a hair below for no other reason than the shorter running time. Clouzot's version (at ~150 minutes) felt like a real epic, giving us a lot of time to sit with these characters in their predicament and share in their anguish, whereas Friedkin's (at only ~120 min) felt comparatively breezier on a first watch. This is not to downplay the terrific performances of Scheider and the other actors here, or the horrific setpiece obstacles Friedkin puts in their way, but the next time I go through each film I'm tempted to jot down detailed notes on characters/plot/runtime just to see who had the better overall mix. For now, I think it might just be a matter of taste.