Taglines: The most tense, taut 24 hours that ever confronted a woman and her lover.
Elevator to the Gallows movie storyline. A businessman (Julien Tavernier, played by Maurice Ronet), in love with his boss’s wife (Florence Carala, played by Jeanne Moreau), plans a murder to look like suicide. This involves using a grappling hook and rope to enable him to climb up a floor without using the elevator. So far, so good.
The boss is duly murdered, our “hero” climbs back down, takes the elevator down, and then realises he has left the rope dangling. Well, back up in the elevator, but alas, the building custodian shuts off the power, stopping the elevator between floors. Frantic (also an alternate title along with “Elevator to the Gallows”), our man tries to escape, but he is truly trapped.
Meanwhile, at street level, things are not going well for the man’s inamorata. She is wandering around wondering what happened to her man, and is “vagged” by the gendarmes for not having her ID papers. There’s more. A pair of wandering teenage lovers (Louis and Veronique, played by Georges Poujouly and Yori Bertin), decide to steal the man’s car. They know who he is, and freely use his name while committing a few other crimes of their own.
Such as stealing a Mercedes 300SL, and murdering the owner and his wife in the process. When the man finally does get out of the elevator after the power is restored in the morning, he discovers that…. But that would be telling, and you will want to find out for yourself. In any case, I have told enough to show that for the protagonist of this tale, the universe is truly a place not to be trusted at all!
Elevator to the Gallows (French: Ascenseur pour L’échafaud; previously known as Frantic in the US), also known as Lift to the Scaffold (UK), is a 1958 French crime film directed by Louis Malle, starring Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet as illicit lovers whose murder plot starts to unravel because of a malfunctioning elevator. The scenario was adapted from a 1956 novel of the same name by Noël Calef.
Associated by some critics with the film noir style, and introducing new narrative and editing techniques, the film is considered an important work in establishing the Nouvelle Vague and the New Modern Cinema. The improvised soundtrack by Miles Davis and the relationship the film establishes among music, image and emotion were considered ground-breaking.
Malle cast Moreau after seeing her in the Paris stage production of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The film’s score is considered by many as groundbreaking. The score by Miles Davis has been described by jazz critic Phil Johnson as “The loneliest trumpet sound you will ever hear, and the model for sad-core music ever since. Hear it and weep.”
Elevator to the Gallows (1958)
Directed by: Louis Malle
Starring: Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly, Yori Bertin, Jean Wall, Iván Petrovich, Félix Marten, Lino Ventura, Elga Andersen, Charles Denner, Jacques Hilling, Jacqueline Staup
Screenplay by: Louis Malle, Roger Nimier
Production Design by: Irénée Leriche, Hubert Mérial
Cinematography by: Henri Decaë
Film Editing by: Léonide Azar
Art Direction by: Jean Mandaroux, Rino Mondellini
Makeup Department: Boris de Fast
Music by: Miles Davis
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Lux Compagnie Cinématographique de France
Release Date: January 29, 1958
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