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Filled to the brim with brawny, brawling men driving trucks, “Hell Drivers” is a not-all-that-meditative meditation on machismo. The one female character of note, the trucking company secretary (Peggy Cummins), tells the two men with whom she finds herself in a love triangle that she should be allowed to choose who she loves only for the screenplay to go ahead and let the two men choose anyway. One of those men is Tom Yately (Stanley Baker), recently sprung from the clink and needing a job with no questions asked. That’s how he winds up hauling gravel at company-mandated reckless speeds only to eventually learn the man in charge (William Hartnell) and the top driver (Patrick McGoohan) are in cahoots to line their pockets with extra cash. That gives “Hell Drivers” an anti-capitalist punch even as Yately being bullied by his co-workers suggests director and co-writer Cy Endfield infusing a righteous anger no doubt stemming from his being pushed out of Hollywood during Joseph McCarthy’s witch-hunts. Appropriately, Baker seethes with great venom as Endfield’s alter ego. A pre-fame Sean Connery appears in a supporting role, but it’s McGoohan who scores as Yately’s sadistic rival. McGoohan goes the entire movie with a cigarette lodged between his lips, even when his character gets into a fistfight with Yately. It’s quite a feat.
