Six desperate men are hired to transport a dangerous cargo over a rough desert road, lured by the promise of a big bonus -- if they survive the trip. The main protagonists are a tough, cynical womanizer (Brian Keith) and a late-middle-aged failure (Dick Foran) who's at the end of his rope.Does any of this sound familiar? The movie -- just like a certain classic foreign film which will remain unacknowledged by the parties responsible for this turkey -- even begins with a literal bang, as an out-of-control rocket takes out a schoolyard full of kids and moms. (Which is probably the one-and-only truly shocking moment in this entire movie, mostly due to its gratuitous body count.) Unfortunately, comparing "Violent Road" to "Wages of Fear" is a bit like comparing a bottle of stale malt liquor (with a couple of cigarette butts floating in it) to a shot of Casa Noble crystal tequila. OK, I exaggerate: Watching "Violent Road" wasn't nearly as unpleasant as downing said bottle of stale malt liquor, butts and all, would no doubt be. But the fact remains this could serve as a primer on how to take the elements of a classic thriller and botch every single one of them.Instead of a series of fiendish obstacles which will test the limits of the drivers' ingenuity, courage and endurance, they're challenged first by a remarkably goofy sequence involving one of the phoniest boulders in cinematic history.When they reach a spot where a landslide has almost completely blocked the road, as the first truck negotiates this narrow pass, the vibration dislodges some gravel, a few rocks and a paper-mache boulder -- just one, mind you. As this massive rock is bounding like a jackrabbit with its tail on fire down that near-vertical slope one of the drivers comes out of nowhere and *deflects it* with a brilliantly-executed flying kick! Now that was a pretty amazing stunt, but from the size of the boulder, if it had been the real thing it would have weighed at least half a ton. Can you say "shattered kneecap, tibia and fibula"? Boy howdy, but those 50s-era fuc -- er, truckers were REALLY tough.Note also that unlike "The Wages of Fear", instead of nitro, these guys are transporting the separate components of rocket fuel (hydrazine, concentrated hydrogen peroxide, and nitric acid) which means if even one of the trucks doesn't get through, the whole exercise will have been pointless. So you can safely bet all the trucks will reach their destination, because if there's one thing that's certain about this film it's that it will remain uncontaminated by any trace of that wimpy, Frenchified bleak existentialism.So much for suspense, then.Although just as in "Wages of Fear" they kill off Dick Foran's character near the end of the film, here it's done in a way which mostly makes him look like an idiot, while leaving Brian Keith's character entirely blameless. (No moral ambiguities here, Bub!) Seriously: Foran discovers a cap on a nitric acid tank that's been jarred loose and is leaking, yet despite having been warned about how nasty and corrosive the stuff is, he tightens it with his bare hand? Don't truckers who transport hazardous cargo have toolboxes, maybe with a pipe wrench or even some heavy-duty rubber gloves? The boys encounter their next big challenge when the brakes fail on an oncoming school bus -- yet it still manages to negotiate several hairpin turns as it barrels down a steep mountain road. Just in the nick of time, the skilled and courageous drivers pull their trucks off the road. Whew!Then the brakes fail on one of the trucks, but Keith wrastles it down from on top of a mountain. Wotta man! And no one will leave their seats during the protracted towing sequence. Don't get me wrong: I admire Brian Keith as an actor. That still doesn't make the way this ends any easier to take. I wanted to go all Elvis on the TV screen, for the blatant thumb-in-the-eye they give to the original.But if you have some time to kill and this is your only option versus, say, a documentary on antique Serbo-Croatian mustache cups, hey, go for it.

The picture should have had the title of Danger Ahead.It's basically the story of truckers trying to get dangerous chemical moved to the new location.In the midst of all this, one of our truckers, who is substituting for his alcoholic brother, breaks out singing Rolling Along With A Breeze. That song was appropriate for the 1954 film "The Long Long Trailer with Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz and Marjorie Main. It was ridiculous here to say the least.The film tries to reveal the personal lives of the truckers on this mission. It could have been certainly more exciting given the nature of the topic. Instead, we get explosions, death on the road, and a lot of broken bones.

This little B-movie may be a long way from its classic French predecessor The Wages of Fear (1953), but it still manages a few shudders. Six guys drive tanker trucks down a winding mountain road, with a load of rocket fuel. One false move and they're less than toast. Of course, there're the inevitable hazards-- a runaway bus, sloppy brakes, and who forgot to tighten the fuel valve, plus, a wild- driving kid (Garrison). Good thing Brian Keith's in charge. He's perfect for the blue-collar role, though poor Zimbalist Jr. looks a little lost, even as a professor doing double duty as a driver. Notice how they work the good-looking girls into a macho story-line. The movie knows its drive-in audience will get tired of the ugly guys. Also, the canny producers went out and got one of Hollywood's best actresses, Ann Doran, for the heavy-duty role of the Sarge's wife. And, if memory serves, the Kennedy Meadows road northwest of Lone Pine was used for the mountain hair-raiser scenes.Unfortunately, this is the type of solid little B-movie that would soon drive off into the sunset.

The Violent Road casts Brian Keith taking on a really hazardous trip, transporting three components of rocket fuel, any one of them could reek havoc of some kind if it is jarred. Making it worse Keith has to travel over an abandoned road with little traffic that is rocky. It's like traveling with nitroglycerin with triple the risk.The place storing the stuff has to move because a military rocket experiment went horribly wrong and crashed into the town causing death and destruction. Keith also has to pick five other men willing to make the risk. One is picked for him, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. who is a scientist and knows how to handle the fuel.The other four are Sean Garrison, Perry Lopez, Arthur Batanides and Dick Foran. Foran's portrayal is a poignant one. A former Marine who was mandatory retired he can't get used to it. He just drinks all day and bores the young Marines at the bar that Keith finds him. Foran's scenes with wife Ann Doran are truly touching.The Violent Road is a nice no frills B picture from Warner Brothers, the kind that used to fill the second bill on a program. Now that stuff would be found on television and shortly Keith and Zimbalist would be seen there often.