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Elevator to the Gallows [VHS]

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Released originally in 1957, newly restored this year, Louis Malle's ("Pretty Baby") gorgeous "Elevator to the Gallows" ("Ascenseur pour l'Echafaud") is ultimately more flash than substance: many scenes were filmed with natural light (shades of Dogma95?) and Jeanne Moreau's penultimate scene walking down the Champs Elysees light only from the glare of the shop windows that she passes is stunning in its simple, shadowy beauty. Paris, in many ways has never looked more beautiful or more sinister.
The plot revolves around two couples: Florence Carala (Moreau), her paramour Julien (Maurice Ronet) and two juvenile delinquents, Veronique (Yori Bertin) and Louis (Georges Poujouly)...who steal Julien's car. The quartet meet only at the conclusion of the film though their actions definitely affect each other earlier.
There is also intrigue involving Julien and Florence's husband Simon Carala (Jean Wall) and their participation in war profiteering in the Indochina War (it is 1957, after all). But the plot takes a back seat to the mise en scene as Malle's camera and the mood take precedence over plot development and plot logic.
"Elevator to the Gallows" (a very witty title, by-the-way) is at times breathtakingly beautiful to behold: Decae's moody camerawork and Miles Davis' score and trumpet work are brilliant. And as a precursor to the emotional depth, flash and profundity of what was soon to arrive, "Elevator to the Gallows" is an important piece of the wonderful puzzle that was to become the French New Wave a few years hence.

Louis Malle was all of 25 when he made his directorial debut with this 1958 noirish thriller that also serves as a morality play. Using the elevator of the title as a vehicle for his leitmotif, he does an admirable job of capturing the smoky gray atmosphere of Paris in the 1950's and using it to great cinematic effect on a chain-link story of deception and murder. In fact, the whole movie plays like a Francophile version of a James M. Cain novel times two with plot twists coming in quick and sometimes contrived succession. To its credit, the brief 92-minute running time trots by quickly given the multiple storylines.

The labyrinth story focuses first on illicit lovers Florence Carala, the restless wife of a corrupt arms dealer, and Julien Tavernier, a former war hero working for Florence's husband. There is not a wasted moment as they plot her husband's murder, but of course, things go awry with a forgotten piece of evidence and a running car ready to be taken. An amoral young couple, sullen and resentful Louis and free-spirited Veronique, enter the scene tangentially and get caught up in their own deceptions with a boisterous German couple whom they meet through a fender bender. The plot strands meander somewhat and eventually come together in a climax that has all the characters confronting the harsh reality of their past actions. There is a particular poignancy in the photos Florence sees at the end since we have no indication of the depth of emotion between the lovers otherwise.

Malle, along with co-screenwriter Roger Nimier, presents an interesting puzzle full of irony and chance events, but there is a periodic slackness to the suspense, for instance, Florence's endlessly despondent walk though nocturnal Paris. Jazz great Miles Davis contributes a fitting hipster score, though the music is not as big an element as I expected in setting the mood. With her sorrowful eyes and pouting intelligence, Jeanne Moreau makes a vivid impression as Florence and gives her obsessed character the necessary gravitas to make her journey worthy of our interest. Maurice Ronet effectively plays Julien like a coiled spring throughout, and it's intriguing to note how most of his performance takes place in an immobilized elevator. As Louis and Veronique, Georges Poujuloy and the especially pixyish Yori Bertin are the forerunners for the runaway pair in Jean-Luc Godard's "Breathless" replete with youthful angst and mercenary cool.

The print transfer on the 2006 Criterion Collection DVD package is wonderfully pristine. The first disc also contains the original and 2005 re-release trailers, though there is surprisingly no scholarly audio commentary track (the usual bonus for a Criterion release). The second disc, however, makes up for it with a bevy of extras starting with an extensive 1975 early career retrospective interview with Malle, a 2005 interview with an aged but still haunting Moreau, and a joint interview with the two icons and one-time lovers at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival.

Three shorts on the second disc focus on Davis's contribution - the six-minute "The Record Session" shot the night Davis and his musicians recorded the score; a remembrance piece with pianist Rene Utreger, the only surviving member of Davis's ensemble; and the celebratory "Miles Goes Modal: The Breakthrough Score to Elevator to the Gallows" where jazz trumpeter Jon Faddis and music critic Gary Giddins discuss Davis's influence over the generation of musicians to come. There is also a short by Malle set to Charlie Parker's "Crazeology" and an informative 25-page photo essay booklet.

French New Wave at it's best? Louis Malle's first film has been considered one of the first if not the first film of the French New Wave and either way is certainly one of the best. The story has Hitchcockian undertones to it; A man kills his lover's husband and then gets trapped in the elevator while fleeing the scene. The tension mounts as the man's lover, Jeanne Moreau and the audience wait to see if he will escape or get caught. Like the early films of the new wave there are many shots of and around Paris. However Malle made one of the best decisions in cinematic history by having Miles Davis do the soundtrack. Miles gives those scenes in Paris and the entire film a quality that is indescribable. For those who admire the films of Godard, Truffaut or Varda will love this unbelievable piece of cinema. However this film is not available on DVD. Cannot for the life of me imagine why. Criterion please help!!! The soundtrack on its own is amazing and for jazz fans should be purchased immediately. I looked for it forever and it has finally been released on CD.

Louis Malle is one of the best film directors to ever work in the field. He is perhaps best known for his semi-autobiographical films "Murmur of the Heart" and "Au Revoir Les Enfants", both of which depict fictionalized periods of his life growing up in France. All of his films have a magical quality about them telling compelling stories about believable characters. My first exposure to Malle was "Atlantic City", the story of an aging wannabee gangster (Burt Lancaster) who falls in love with a younger woman working in the oyster bar at a casino. Each has dreams they are pursuing, trying to escape the grind of working on the boardwalk. "Atlantic City" cemented Sarandon's growing reputation and helped to preserve Lancaster's film legacy. The popularity of "Au Revoir Les Enfants", about Malle's days at a boarding school and the friendship he made there, warranted the re-release of "Murmur of the Heart" allowing more people to experience his films. Malle quickly became on of "those" directors whose every new film I eagerly await.

One of Malle's earliest films, "Elevator to the Gallows" has just been re-released. Shot in black and white, featuring Jeanne Moreau's first film role, and highlighted by a Miles Davis soundtrack, the film is a great example of Film Noir.

Florence (Jeanne Moreau) and Julien (Maurice Ronet) share a phone conversation that only two lovers in Paris can have; they make arrangements to meet later that evening. Julien, the second-in-command at a shady French corporation, asks the receptionist if she can stay a little late. They are working on a Saturday so Julien can finish a report for their boss, Carala to take with him to Geneva. The boss calls down and says he will be leaving to catch his train shortly. Julien reenters his office, grabs his gloves, a gun, the report and a grappling hook and walks out on to his balcony. He throws the grappling hook around the balcony above and climbs up to his boss' office. Entering through the front, Julien presents the report and then kills his boss, making the death appear to be a suicide. He locks all of the doors from the inside and then climbs back to his office and leaves with the receptionist and a security guard. Walking them out, the guard returns to the building to finish his rounds. Julien hops into his convertible, attracting the eye of the flower shop girl nearby, who is meeting her boyfriend, a wannabe hood. As Julien starts the car, he realizes that he forgot to remove the rope from the balcony and rushes back inside, leaving the car running. Julien makes it up three floors in the elevator before the security guard cuts the power and leaves for the weekend, stranding him in the elevator. The flower shop girl and her boyfriend steal the car for a joyride, riding Florence who is waiting for Julien. Florence recognizes the car, but only sees the girl in the passenger seat, assuming the worse.

It may seem like I have described the entire film, but really I have just covered the set-up, all of which is intriguing and extremely well done. The film continues from here making twists and turns along the way that will delight Noir enthusiasts.

Taking place over the course of one day, the film has a stark look, almost a sort of enhanced black and white. Figures pop out with little definition or detail against backgrounds which are fairly monochromatic. This is more a result of the technique of the day and age when the film was made, Jean- Luc Godard's early films are similar, but it aids the mood of the story well.

Jeanne Moreau is beautiful and intriguing as Florence, Carala's wife. Destined to become an international star, this is a good opportunity to watch her first film, to watch how she commands your attention in every frame.

"Elevator" is not a timeless film, peppered with dated elements and references. The story following the two young lovers as they joyride through the countryside is very grounded in the late 50s. Their speech patterns, mannerisms, actions, all scream James Dean and Elvis.

But these brief moments are counteracted by other brilliant touches throughout. The story contains twists and turns which are surprising and well-done. And the Miles Davis soundtrack is, understandably, great. Thankfully, it doesn't accompany every scene, only punctuating brief interludes of the story, highlighting particular scenes.

Also, there is a light dose of political consciousness in the film. There are many mentions of arms dealers, wars, etc., as the business Julien and Carala are involved in, giving the film a little more heft, more resonance. None of these elements really serve the story, except to make Carala a well-known figure. Malle was clearly interested in making a statement. The effort is very subtle. I'm not sure he achieved his goal, but it adds to the dimensions of these characters, making them more real.

"Elevator to the Gallows" is a great film, an early effort from a master filmmaker.

This film can be considered one of the earliest, and in my opinion, one of the best New Wave films. It is by far my favorite of the early Malle works. The mood is set by the soundtrack which was done by Miles Davis. The chaotic feel of the music is perfectly fitted to the pace of the film, made all the more amazing considering that Davis and company improvised the entire score while watching the movie in a studio. The story itself is a pretty straight-forward murder plot, but its quirks and twists serve to make it haunting and beautiful. The shots of Paris, the drives into the Banlieu...Malle makes the most of what little there was. Dialogue is not even an issue here; if you don't understand a word of French, it won't hurt you at all when watching... Well worthwhile.

This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.

Elevator to the Gallows, known in France as "Ascenseur pour l'échafaud" is Loius Malle's first major film.

It follows a man who murders his boss in his office and gets trapped in the office building elevator when the power is shut off for the night.

The film has an excellent original score improvised by Miles Davis.

The DVD has some fine special features in a double disc set.

Disc 1 contains the film with theatrical trailers.

Disc two contains an interview with actor Jeanne Moreau, director Louis Malle, actors Maurice Ronet, Maurice Moreau, and soundtrack pianist René Urtreger, Footage of Miles Davus and Louis Malle during the soundtrack recording, a film about the score with music critic, Gary Giddins and jazz musician Jon Faddis. Also included is Louis Malle's first student film Crazeologie.

This is the best edition of the film currently available and I recommend it highly

Louis Malle's first film Elevator To The Gallows (1957, released 1958), his homage to US pulp, is out for the first time ever on DVD. Jazz-buffs know it for its spare, haunting score by Miles Davis. Malle himself is better known these days for his US films - think Pretty Baby and Atlantic City. Those featured his then-partner Susan Sarandon. In Elevator To The Gallows he introduced the young, jolie-laide Jeanne Moreau as the wife of a wealthy businessman who has arranged for her ex-Foreign Legion lover to murder her husband and run off with her.
What seems a perfect plan goes awry and Moreau (looking oddly like '60s UK actress Hayley "Pollyanna" Mills - how different little Hayley's career might have been if she'd been born in France) spends much of the film wandering the Paris streets alone at night. Her lover has not only failed to turn up at their rendezvous; she has seen him drive by with another woman in his car.
In fact, the lover/murderer - played by Maurice Ronet as the epitome of cool ten years before Belmondo in Breathless - is trapped in the elevator of the building where he has killed Moreau's husband. His car has been stolen by a punk who is joyriding with his girlfriend. What the joyriders get embroiled in during the night ensures that what seemed a perfect murder plot has unravelled by the time the sun comes up again.
Elevator To The Gallows is pacy and tense, luminescently photographed and superbly acted by all the leads. The score is sublime, of course. The DVD is packed with great extras. Indispensable.

Louis Malle's classic French film noir "Elevator to the Gallows" is accompanied by a smooth musical score courtesy of legendary jazz musician Miles Davis. Pouty lipped femme fatale Jeanne Moreau, in a pivotal early role, playing Mme. Carala, young wife of wealthy arms merchant Simon Carala played by Jean Wall is an accomplice in a murder plot. She and her husband's business associate Julien Tavernier played by Maurice Ronet, an ex-paratrooper in Indochina and Algeria plot to kill Moreau's husband by faking a suicide.

Everything goes as planned until Ronet spots a rope he used to rapel up to Mr. Carala's office as he's departing in his convertible. When returning to the office, he gets trapped in the elevator as the company's security guard turns off the electricity for the weekend.

Meanwhile, a young flower shop girl and her delinquent boyfriend steal Tavernier's car and go on an escapade which results in the shooting of a German couple at a motel. The young man, Louis is posing as Tavernier and uses his revolver to commit the murder.

Moreau while waiting at a cafe for her beloved Tavernier, spots his stolen car with the young flower shop girl hanging out of the window. Thinking she's been jilted, she roams the rainswept Paris streets in a state of bewilderment mourning the loss of her lover.

Tavernier finally released from his entombment in the elevator quickly gets picked up for the murder of the German couple. In a twisted conclusion, justice is aptly served to the whole array of criminals involved in the respective murders.

The actress Jeanne Moreau, now almost 80, pauses from talking about her film career, as if something urgent has occurred to her. She looks dead at you, the viewer, her eyes dark and instantly hypnotic. "You think you know a lot," she says. "And you don't."

Moreau then casually returns you to the story of how she made the groundbreaking "Elevator to the Gallows" (1958) with young Louis Malle, her director and lover. "It was the decisive moment for the rest of my life," the storied French actress says.

Moreau's talk is one of several compelling extra features on Criterion's release of "Gallows" (Ascenseur pour l'echafaud). The movie itself, somewhere between noir and new wave, is remembered mostly for its innovations in camerawork and for its soundtrack, a work of improvisation by Miles Davis that pushed jazz in new directions.

The French director made quite a few better films. But "Gallows," his first, certainly will be of interest to jazz fans and the new wave hardcore.

The "Gallows" set devotes three short films to the all-night session that produced the Davis soundtrack. "Malle had nerves of steel to put something as important as the score in the hands of an improvising musician," the critic Gary Giddons says in the 24-minute interview piece "Miles Goes Modal." Davis recorded in Paris with the expatriate drummer Kenny Clarke and three Europeans. Each worked in front of a screen displaying a rough cut of the movie.

Davis seems to duet with Moreau's character, who walks wraithlike through the streets of Paris as he plays. "It was a flow," says the actress, a witness to the session. Also on hand was a French TV crew, which came away with severely hip footage of Davis improvising (it runs about 4 minutes).

The one-channel audio, taken from the 35mm print's optical track, benefits from significant restoration. Davis' horn sounds silky yet distinct. In action scenes, the cymbals and bass pounce out of the speakers. Henri Decae's black-and-white images are works of art, casting nighttime Paris and Moreau in natural light. The free-moving camera and low lighting were innovations that inspired France's emerging new wave. ("Gallows" is presented widescreen with the 16:9 enhancement.)

Extras also include a fun chat with Malle and Moreau at 1993's Cannes festival; an interview with the (somewhat disgruntled) pianist who played on the soundtrack; and Malle's absurdist student film "Crazeologie," which bops along to the titular Charlie Parker song.

This was Louis Malle's first. Previously he had worked with Jacques Cousteau on "The Silent World" (interestingly enough) and now tried his hand at film noir. Several things fell into place to make this debut a memorable one.

First, he was able to get Jeanne Moreau to play Florence Carala. She had previously been mostly a stage and B-movie player who was obviously very talented, but as Malle put it, not considered really photogenic. What she becomes after her performance here is a premier star of the French cinema partially because of the way she is photographed, and partly because she was so perfectly suited to the character, which I suspect she helped to create. She does a lot silently or with just a few words in the scenes where she walks the streets of Paris, frantic because her lover and fellow murder conspirator, Julien Tavernier (Maurice Ronet) has stood her up and she cannot understand what has happened.

Second, Malle's collaboration with screenwriter and novelist Roger Nimier adapting a roman thriller by Noel Calef to the screen turned out to be exactly right for the material, especially because they used mostly just the plot of the novel and expanded Moreau's role.

The third factor was the fortuitous jazz score by Miles Davis. Davis happened to be in Paris as the movie was being edited and Malle was able to talk him into doing a trumpet-centered original score, said to have been composed on the fly late one night and early the next morning as Moreau drank champagne and listened.

"Ascenseur pour l'echafaud," like so many American film noirs that it frankly resembles, is a murder done for love and money gone wrong. It is both a mistake by the murderer and fate itself that traps Julien Tavernier. But there is an intriguing complication in the person of young Louis (Georges Poujouly) who steals Julien's car and takes the flower girl (who admired the dashing Tavernier from afar) on an ill-fated joy ride. Unlike most of Malle's work to come, this is clearly a plot-driven, commercial flick (but oh, so exquisitely done!) without a hint of the usual autobiographical elements for which Malle is so well-known.

The Criterion Collection two disc set features interviews with Moreau, Malle and others, and includes Malle's student film, "Crazeologie," (after a Charlie Parker tune) a "theater of the absurd" little ditty about which I can only say I would never have guessed that Louis Malle was the auteur. "Elevator to the Gallows" itself is a beautifully restored high-definition black and white transfer with new and excellent subtitles. There is a booklet with an insightful review by Terrence Rafferty and part of a very interesting interview with Malle conducted by Philip French.

By the way, Malle was 24-years-old when he made this film and commented that he was very worried about his ability to work with actors since he had "spent four years" previously "filming fish"! (quoting from the Philip French interview). He gives Jeanne Moreau credit for being "incredibly helpful" until he lost his fear of actors.

So, see this for Jeanne Moreau, one of the legends of the French cinema, who displays here a kind of magnetic sexuality that had me thoroughly intrigued.