Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (1958)

Director:

Louis Malle

Writers:

Noël Calef (novel)
Louis Malle (writer)

Release Date:

23 June 1958 (Uruguay)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

Plot:

A self-assured business man murders his employer, the husband of his adulterer, which unintentionally provokes an ill-fated chain of events.

Plot Keywords:

Young Lovers | Debut Film | Sleeping Pill | 1950s | Paris

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Jeanne Moreau	...	Florence Carala
Maurice Ronet	...	Julien Tavernier
Georges Poujouly	...	Louis
Yori Bertin	...	Véronique
Jean Wall	...	Simon Carala
Elga Andersen	...	Frieda Bencker
Sylviane Aisenstein	...	Yvonne
Micheline Bona	...	Geneviève
Gisèle Grandpré	...	Jacqueline Mauclair
Jacqueline Staup	...	Anna
Marcel Cuvelier	...	Le réceptionniste du motel
Gérard Darrieu	...	Maurice
Charles Denner	...	L'adjoint du commissaire Cherrier
Hubert Deschamps	...	Le substitut du procureur
Jacques Hilling	...	Le garagiste

Also Known As:

Elevator to the Gallows
Elevator to the Scaffold
Frantic (USA)
Lift to the Scaffold (UK)

Runtime:

88 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Australia:PG | West Germany:12 | Finland:K-16 | Argentina:16

Filming Locations:

26 Rue de Courcelles, Paris 8, Paris, France

Company:

Nouvelles Éditions de Films

Trivia:

Louis Malle shot his lead actress Jeanne Moreau in close-up and natural light and often without make-up. Moreau, an icon of French film, had never been seen like this before, to the extent that lab technicians, reportedly appalled at how unflatteringly she was photographed, refused to process the film. Once they were persuaded to, however, it soon began clear that Malle had captured every nuance of Moreau's performance.

Goofs:

Continuity: After becoming soaked while walking around the city in a rain storm in search of Julien, Florence arrives at the bar with her hair dry and still perfectly coiffed, as well as dry clothing and perfect make-up.

Quotes:

Julien Tavernier: How many billions did the Indochina War bring you? And now Algeria, how much?

Movie Connections:

Featured in Geburtstagskinder der Nouvelle Vague (2007) (TV)

A Film Noir Masterwork - Breathtaking to the Eye and the Ear

"Elevator to the Gallows (Ascenseur pour l'échafaud)" is a master work, so it's startling to learn that it was Louis Malle's first feature. It's a mother lode textbook of how-to for noir genre filmmakers as he creates his own style from what he's learned from other masters.

Malle pays tribute to the tense murder style of Hitchcock with Billy Wilder's cynicism of selfishness a la "Double Indemnity" plus Graham Greene-like, post-war politics from "The Third Man"-- and arms and oil dealers with military pasts in the Middle East are not outdated let alone adulterous lovers and rebellious teenagers.

The film drips with sex and violence without actually showing either -- sensuous Jeanne Moreau walking through a long, rainy Paris night is enough to incite both.

The black and white cinematography by Henri Decaë is breathtakingly beautiful in this newly struck 35 mm print, from smokey cafés with ever watchful eyes like ours to the titular, ironic alibi's long shafts (which surely must have inspired a key, far paler scene in "Speed") to highway lights, to a spare interrogation box, but particularly in the street scenes. The coincidences and clues are built up, step by step, visually, including the final damning evidence.

Miles Davis's improvisations gloriously and agitatedly burst forth as if pouring from the cafés and radios, but the bulk of the film is startlingly silent, except for ambient sounds like rain that adds to the tension in the plot.

The characters are archetypes -- the steely ex-Legonnaire, the James Dean and Natalie Wood imitators, the preening prosecutor -- that fit together in a marvelous puzzle. But all are cool besides Moreau's fire, as she dominates the look of the film, just wandering around Paris.

There is some dialog that doesn't quite make sense at the end, but, heck, neither does "The Big Sleep" and this is at least in that league, if not higher in the pantheon.