William Friedkin's 1977 adventure film is the second adaptation of Georges Arnaud's novel Le Salaire de la peur and tells the story of four men at four different parts of the world, finding themselves exiled away in Porvenir, a remote village in Latin America. They are assigned to perform a seemingly impossible task for the promise of a reward. Friedkin's insane choice to open the film with four separate vignettes following each character as they escape from their problems and end up in Latin America is a success. The two-act structure manages to create scrumptious amount of tension in the journey as the characters are faced with failure every step of the way. Roy Scheider is fantastic as Jackie Scanlon, modeled after Humphrey Bogart in The Treasure of Sierra Madre. When the credits rolled, I stood up and clapped. Sorcerer's failure along with other films made by popular directors at the time signaled the end of The Hollywood New Age.