Elevator to the Gallows (1958)
"Ascenseur pour l'échafaud" (original title)

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

Director:

Louis Malle

Writers:

Roger Nimier (adaptation), Louis Malle (adaptation),

Stars:

Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly

1 win.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
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, La fille du bar
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

Storyline

Florence Carala and her lover Julien Tavernier, an ex - paratrooper want to murder her husband by faking a suicide. But after Julien has killed him and he puts his things in his car, he finds he has forgotten the rope outside the window and he returns to the building to remove it...

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Plot Keywords:

rope | murder | alibi | german | telephone operator | 

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Official Sites:

Rialto Pictures

Country:

France

Language:

French German

Release Date:

29 January 1958 (France)

Also Known As:

Frantic

Filming Locations:

26 Rue de Courcelles, Paris 8, Paris, France

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$7,354 (USA) (24 June 2005)

Gross:

$263,404 (USA) (16 December 2005)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Nouvelles Éditions de Films (NEF)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

88 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Gardenal is a barbiturate, and is the most widely used anticonvulsant (anti-epileptic) worldwide.

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Goofs

Seen from the outside during the opening telephone call, Tavernier's office has a bare walkway and railing. Seen from the inside during the same telephone call, the walkway outside his office has a shrubbery.

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Quotes

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

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Connections

Featured in Zomergasten: Episode #20.2 (2007)

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Soundtracks

Played by:
Miles Davis - trumpet
Barney Wilen - tenor saxophone
Rene Urtreger - piano
Pierre Michelot - contrabass
Kenny Clarke - drums

User Reviews

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.