Yves Montand and Charles Vanel both suffered from conjunctivitis after filming in a pool of crude oil and being exposed to gas fumes.
Henri-Georges Clouzot originally planned on shooting the film in Spain, but Yves Montand refused to work in Spain as long as fascist dictator Francisco Franco was in power. Filming took place instead in the south of France, near Saint-Gilles, in the Camargue. The village seen in the film was built from scratch.
Filming began on 27 August 1951 and was scheduled to run for nine weeks. Numerous problems plagued the production, however. The south of France had an unusually rainy season that year, causing vehicles to bog down, cranes to fall over and sets to be ruined. Director Henri-Georges Clouzot broke his ankle. Véra Clouzot fell ill. The production was 50 million francs over budget. By the end of November, only half the film was completed. With the days becoming shorter because of winter, production shut down for six months. The second half of the film was finally completed in the summer of 1952.
Accusations of anti-Americanism led to the US censor cutting several key scenes from the film.
A film of some historical significance as it was a foreign film which, without being dubbed, was widely released in Great Britain. In the early 50s, it was held that British audiences would not stand for a subtitled film, and foreign films rarely got beyond the big cities except through specialized outlets such as film societies. However, this film was a huge box-office hit, and led to a brief period when other subtitled films were given a general release in British cinemas. None did anything like as well at the box-office and the trend quickly petered out. It was pointed out that large sections of "The Wages Of Fear" contain no dialogue at all, and that many lines of dialogue are in English as there are several American characters - perhaps these may have been factors in the film's success.