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Don't Believe the Hype

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

This film is possibly most notable for being regarded as the first film of the celebrated French New Wave, a film movement which would modernise cinema and change it forever. With this in mind, Elevator to the Gallows has to be considered something worth a viewing. Like many others in the New Wave, the influence of the British director Alfred Hitchcock is not too far from the surface in what is essentially a crime thriller. More specifically, this one could be more usefully categorised as a French neo-noir which has a plot typical of this bracket of film with a story propelled by a woman and her lover scheming to murder her husband. This plot point is dealt with quite quickly and early though and it is the fall-out of this crime which is what the film is really about, with the excellent central conceit of the murderer trapped in an elevator one which is highly distinctive. The film essentially is made up of two connected crime stories of young lovers, the older of which are the two whose actions kick-start the plot and who never physically meet throughout the course of the story, while the other two are that new staple of 50's cinema, juvenile delinquents. It's an interesting story, with some nice twists and turns. It looks splendid too, with scenic views of 50's Paris doing it no harm at all. Not only this but it also is fortunate enough to sport an improvised score from jazz legend Miles Davis, which perfectly enhances the urban melancholy unfolding on screen.

To think that this was Louis Malle's *first* fictional film! A real showcase for French cinema icon Jeanne Moreau (this was right before The 400 Blows, La Notte, and Jules et Jim) as the wife of a war profiteer (with a company that manufactures product for war) in love with his employee, Julien (Maurice Ronet). Julien and Moreau's Florence have plotted supposedly the perfect murder, a sure-fire suicide setup that appears fool-proof...but is it ever? Leaving the rope and hook that helped Julien get to the floor with the boss' office, he returns to retrieve it but is trapped in the elevator when a fellow employee cuts off the power before locking the gate to the building. Florence believes he has instead left her for another woman, a teenage flower shop girl, seen in the passenger seat of his car (stolen by her hoodlum boyfriend in a leather jacket) as it passes. The rest of the night, Florence spends walking the streets of Paris (luridly and excitingly photographed by Henri Decae (he'd go on to photograph the masterpiece, Le Samourai for Jean-Pierre Melville)) while searching for Julien, running into his drunk war friend instead. Moreau's vulnerable performance, all that angst and rejection, the turmoil and devotion, is masterfully presented warts and all. She's magnificent. And, despite the reports that Malle had her with no makeup much to the dismay of his crew, she's so beautiful and elegant, Moreau is never "ugly" or at all less than stunning. Yet she's emotionally exposed and there's even a scene or two where she's so caught up in her own headspace, her Florence walks into traffic, yet not a single car even glosses a breeze upon her. Meanwhile the flower shop girl and her crook boyfriend get all hot at a German couple in a Mercedes zooming past them while in Julien's stolen car, soon meeting them for champagne and conversation at a Parisian motel. When the stupid kid goes to steal the German's car, he knew ahead of time, calling him on it, with the result being a haphazard dual murder, with the teenagers fleeing the crime scene. The German couple dead, with the hood taking Julien's name, he's framed for their murders, yet the whole night he was trapped in the elevator! The elevator situation involved Julien trying to find a way out, nearly being killed while hanging outside it when a security guard momentarily turned on the power!A camera found in Julien's car, by the flower shop girl as she takes a few pictures of the Germans could be their undoing, with Florence doing all she can to save her true love. Just a year before Breathless, you could consider "Elevator to the Gallows" a precursor to the French New Wave movement that took Paris by storm in the 60s. The noirish look and mood, with that vocal jazz score, and the domino effect that results from the initial crime conducted by Julien makes Malle's cinematic debut a must see for fans of his later work and the French New Wave that came after. Malle's film here is a knockout. A model for how Paris is captured in all its busy and active naturality, Malle delivers a strong story with multiple ongoing subplots, soon converging. Moreau as the anchor is the right choice.

Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (AKA: Elevator to the Gallows/Lift to the Scaffold) is directed by Louis Malle and co-written by Malle, Roger Nimier and Noël Calef (novel). It stars Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly, Yori Bertin and Jean Wall. Music is by Miles Davis and cinematography by Henri Decaë. A little ole devil this one, a sly slow pacer that itches away at your skin. Rightly seen as a bridging movie between the classic film noir cycle and the nouvelle vague, Malle's movie is in truth straightforward on narrative terms. Julien Tavernier (Ronet) is going to kill husband of his lover, Florence Carala (Moreau), who also happens to be his boss, but upon executing the perfect murder, he, through his own absent mindedness, winds up stuck in a lift close to the crime scene. Outside Florence is frantically awaiting his arrival so as to begin their life together in earnest, but when a couple of young lovers steal Julien's car, Florence gets the wrong end of the stick and a sequence of events lead to Julien and Florence hitching that ride to the gallows. Simplicity of narrative be damned, Malle's movie is a classic case of that mattering not one jot. There is style to burn here, with bleak atmospherics dripping from every frame, and Miles Davis' sultry jazz music hovers over proceedings like a sleazy grim reaper. The ironic twists in the writing come straight off the bus to noirville, putting stings in the tale, the smart reverse of the norm finding Moreau (sensual) wandering the streets looking for her male lover, while elsewhere he's in isolation and a doppleganger murder scenario is cunningly being played out. Decaë's photography has a moody desperation about it that so fits the story, the use of natural light making fellow French film makers sit up and take notice. While the dialogue, and the caustic aside to arms dealings, ensures we know that Malle can be a sly old fox. He really should have done more noir like pictures. A film that convinces us that Julien and Florence are deeply in love and passionate about each other, and yet they never are once together in the whole movie! It's just one of the many wonderful things about Louis Malle's excellent picture. Remember folks, the camera never lies... 9/10

Julien Tavernier kills Florence Carala's arms dealing husband - but leaves a vital clue behind, in the form of the rope he used to climb up to the window, and down from it to answer his ringing telephone immediately after the murder. The climb up and down is suspenseful, the killing is tense, and the tone changes to somewhat comical, successfully. Julien realises he's left the rope, so he returns for it, and becomes stuck in the lift by a power outage. Carala is waiting for him at a nearby restaurant. His car's engine is running, and in fact, his car is being stolen. Car thieves happen to drive right in front of the girlfriend, who is unaware he is stuck in the lift, and thinks he's out with another girl- while he is, in fact, trying to break out of the lift he is still stuck in. The car thieves then become film's focus, as we follow them to an odd encounter, subsequent dinner, double murder - and their attempt at suicide. Julien manages to get out of the lift and away from the scene of the crime he committed - only to find himself the prime suspect in the murder committed by the two lovers who stole his car, and assumed his identity, the night before! A wonderfully jazzy, suspense/ comedy of errors set in 1950s Paris, filled with dark, yet crystal clear, photography during one a rainy night, a great jazz score, and more plot twists than one can count, without being overly contrived and convoluted, and sporting a wonderfully ironic twist ending. The film has a sense of humour, but the dialogue is handled mostly straight, it is some of the situations the characters find themselves in, which is meant to be funny. I'm not a big car nut either, but the Mercedes-Benz 300SL looks incredible, also. I had the pleasure of seeing this one in a cinema (along with Odds Against Tomorrow, Elevator To The Gallows, Sweet Smell Of Success, and Anatomy Of A Murder) as part of a mini film festival they called Jazz Scores Of Film Noir; this, and Experiment In Terror, were my favourites of the lot.