Plot

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

Florence Carala and her lover, Julien Tavernier, want to murder her husband - Julien's boss - by faking his suicide. But after Julien's killed him, and had left, he remembers he's forgotten the rope outside the window which could implicate him, and he returns to the building to remove it—Stephan Eichenberg <eichenbe@fak-cbg.tu-muenchen.de>

Julien Tavernier works in the offices of a powerful arms dealer, and is having an affairwith his boss' wife, Florence. The pair plan to murder her husband, and make it appear to have been suicide. Unfortunately, their neat plan doesn't turn out so, with one problem after another befalling them. Ultimately proving the old adage, everyone ultimately gets their just desserts.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Having already devised an audacious plan, the forlorn clandestine lovers, sad-eyed Florence Carala, and the square-jawed ex-Foreign Legion paratrooper, Julien Tavernier, exchange vows of eternal love and devotion over the phone. Yearning to breathe free, Florence and Julien have decided to murder her industrialist husband and Tavernier's boss, Simon Carala; however, even though the diabolical partners have planned everything down to the last detail, incriminating evidence left behind become the bitter reminders that there is no such thing as a perfect crime. Now, against the backdrop of a rain-soaked Parisian Saturday, what started as a last desperate attempt to leave everything behind and start anew, has set in motion a chain of events with unforeseen ramifications. Will that irrevocable mistake seal the fate of Florence and Julien?—Nick Riganas

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!