BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Matho The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

ElMaruecan82 Critics generally pinpoint the beginning of the French New Wave with Truffaut and Godard, but as for a real wave, many fore-shocks actually predated the cinematic revolution. The 50's played like a period of creative gestation as a few years before Truffaut's "400 Blows" and Jean-Luc Godard's "Breathless", there was Jean-Pierre Melville's "Bob le Flambeur" and of course, Louis Malle's: "Elevator to the Gallows", the film that elevated French Cinema a few stages above some conventions it didn't know it had.The film is a faux thriller wrapped in real romance, opening with the desperate voice of Jeanne Moreau whispering 'Je t'aime' to her lover. We can measure the power of their love by the promptness with which he puts on gloves, takes a gun and climbs his way to his boss' office, his boss Mr. Carala (Simon Wall) is his mistress' husband. Hitchcock recommended to shoot "crimes like love scenes" but Malle shoots his crime as an act of love. Still, Julien (Maurice Ronet) is surprisingly passionless for a supposedly crime of passion, maybe because the passion is within Florence (Moreau) and Carala is the last formality to get over.There seems to be some history between the two men, both French Foreign Legion veterans paratroopers, Julien made his bones and Carala money, there's a tacit respect that can't hide Julien's resentment, we see immediately that Julien won't feel any remorse and so does Carala, when he can spot the hatred in his murderer's eyes, his arrogance fades out as quickly as light from a candle. But we don't even have to see his murder, as to foreshadow that it won't be any highlight of the day, he's killed off-screen, casually, anti-climactically. And Julien manages to sneak away, using his knife to lock the office's door from outside, and leaves the building with two witnesses. It's the perfect crime and one hell of a beginning.Now, this is the trickiest part of the film, what do you make up when such a perfect crime is followed by such a stupid mistake? Julien starts his car, a classy convertible Chevrolet and then notices the accusing rope hanging between the two balconies. This is not a plot contrivance, this is just absurdity teasing existentialism, just when Julien thought his life had but one direction: Florence, the lousiest but so touchingly human mistake takes him back to the scene of crime. This omission reveals that you can screw people, but not destiny if it decided to screw you. I mentioned Bob le Flambeur earlier, Julien's omission reminded me of Bob's winning streak the very day he wanted to rob the casino. Life can be such a bitch.But Malle doesn't even let us time to analyze this streak of bad luck, the mistake of Julien is immediately overshadowed by the resulting chain of events. Julien gets to the elevator and it all goes so fast, the caretaker shut the power off and he finds himself entrapped for the night. Meanwhile, a young flower shop assistant gets ready for her weekend with Louis, a young thug, played by a James-Dean like George Poujouly, the boy from "Forbidden Games". Louis can't resist the temptation of stealing Julien's car, call it instinct but he feels that he won't come back any sooner. Meanwhile (again), Florence waits for Julien in a café, she sees the car leaving and recognizes the flower shop girl, believing Julien is the driver, she begins a melancholic and sad walk through Parisian streets, punctuating the riveting two-lane thriller.The film is driven by a Jazz score from Miles Davis and the sad allure of Jeanne Moreau staggering down Paris with the street lamps reflected on her face, she's not the glamorous lover, not a femme fatale, but a woman obviously hurt by love and deception, entrapped in a life with no meaning since her lover failed her. The very irony is that the lover himself is entrapped and tries to get his way out of the elevator, condemned to stay powerless while at the same time, the young couple will meet a couple of innocent German tourists and another interference with Karma will lead to Louis shooting both of them. Basically, Julien has acted by proxy, thus becoming guilty of a murder he didn't commit while trying to cover the one he made, the height of irony is that he risks death penalty with the second one.No one would believe the elevator excuse, and yet Julien can't admit his crime since no one knows about his relationship with Florence. The film reaches the delightful point where you think he'll give away his own alibi and admit one murder because at least, he had a motive. But the Police, lead by a young and confident Lino Ventura doesn't believe his story. At that point, any resolution would do, it plays under the rules of hazard and reality, it's not about what you do, but how they stand on the field of common sense. It all comes down to the kind of resolutions that might seem contrived but work nonetheless.The German couple took pictures with Julien's camera and put them to a lab, not only the pictures incriminated Louis but they betrayed Julien, revealing romantic pictures with Florence. The film came full circle with the opening declaration, showing a crime driven by love, and lovers driven to crime, you can feel hints of "Breathless" in the film but Malle's film works even better in my opinion. Indeed, Malle doesn't care for effect, his movie is about the total unpredictability of life, in the name of love, when people do things they can't control, but by doing so, things get out of their own control. Like Florence, we couldn't know about the pictures so we couldn't see them coming.And that's the stuff, great film-making is made of.

wes-connors In Paris, agile Vietnam War (Indochina War, to the French) veteran Maurice Ronet (as Julien Tavernier) and his beautiful lover Jeanne Moreau (as Florence) plan the murder of his boss and her husband, a much older and very wealthy war profiteer. All goes apparently well, until Mr. Ronet realizes he left his "grappling hook" behind. This is the hooked rope Ronet uses to climb from his office's floor to the victim's floor. In hindsight, director Louis Malle should have instructed Ronet to simply use the stairs. In any case, Ronet leaves the engine of his fancy, illegally parked convertible running while he dashes up to retrieve the grappling hook. Alas, the building's power is turned off for the weekend, leaving Ronet trapped in an elevator near the scene of his crime...And, that's not all...Outside the office building, flower shop clerk Yori Bertin (as Veronique) is visited by her juvenile delinquent boyfriend Georges Poujouly (as Louis), preening in his new leather jacket. Looking to upgrade from his stolen scooter, Mr. Poujouly decides to steal Ronet's fancy automobile. He and an initially reluctant Ms. Bertin take the convertible for a joyride which turns deadly. While they get into mischief and murder, Ronet tries to get of the elevator trap. Meanwhile, looking beautiful in Henri Decae's moody black-and-white photography, Ms. Moreau wanders around Paris looking for Ronet. She may have less to do than the others, but director Malle so lovingly follows Moreau as Miles Davis music plays, you savor her every step and close-up...Some of the plot developments are implausible, but not impossible...However, there is one very noteworthy defect; it is the aforementioned grappling hook...There are several questions raised by this device, which is used by Ronet to go from his floor to the floor of his prospective victim. Later, he realizes he forgot to retrieve the hook. The mishap occurs when his telephone rings, but most people would get the phone, then the hook. Ronet doesn't recall the hook until seeing it dangling from the office building, while getting into his getaway car. Still, later, it falls by itself and is picked up by a passing girl. Well, the black cat we see earlier could have dislodged the hoot, if the cat could jump floors. The main problem with all of this is that Ronet does the climbing in broad daylight, in full view of Paris. And, even if nobody looks up, there are thousands of Parisians who would see him from their sitting room windows.******** Elevator to the Gallows (1/29/58) Louis Malle ~ Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly, Yori Bertin

gavin6942 A self-assured business man murders his employer, the husband of his mistress, which unintentionally provokes an ill-fated chain of events.Journalist Barry Farrell wrote, "Moreau had 20 forgettable films behind her... Malle put Moreau under an honest light and wisely let his camera linger. The film was nothing special, but it did accomplish one thing: it proposed a new ideal of cinematic realism, a new way to look at a woman. All the drama in the story was in Moreau's face – the face that had been hidden behind cosmetics and flattering lights in all her earlier films." Farrell is certainly right about the portrayal of Moreau. How can you make a leading lady anything but glamorous? Malle found a way that was quite successful.As for the film being "nothing special", I think Farrell is wrong. A 1950s French film noir that is well executed? This is something we need more of. Starting with a murder and then spreading out from there, this is a good story of suspense, intrigue and all that. The whole concept of being caught in an elevator is incredible, and probably unprecedented.

Spikeopath Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (AKA: Elevator to the Gallows/Lift to the Scaffold) is directed by Louis Malle and co-written by Malle, Roger Nimier and Noël Calef (novel). It stars Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly, Yori Bertin and Jean Wall. Music is by Miles Davis and cinematography by Henri Decaë. A little ole devil this one, a sly slow pacer that itches away at your skin. Rightly seen as a bridging movie between the classic film noir cycle and the nouvelle vague, Malle's movie is in truth straightforward on narrative terms. Julien Tavernier (Ronet) is going to kill husband of his lover, Florence Carala (Moreau), who also happens to be his boss, but upon executing the perfect murder, he, through his own absent mindedness, winds up stuck in a lift close to the crime scene. Outside Florence is frantically awaiting his arrival so as to begin their life together in earnest, but when a couple of young lovers steal Julien's car, Florence gets the wrong end of the stick and a sequence of events lead to Julien and Florence hitching that ride to the gallows. Simplicity of narrative be damned, Malle's movie is a classic case of that mattering not one jot. There is style to burn here, with bleak atmospherics dripping from every frame, and Miles Davis' sultry jazz music hovers over proceedings like a sleazy grim reaper. The ironic twists in the writing come straight off the bus to noirville, putting stings in the tale, the smart reverse of the norm finding Moreau (sensual) wandering the streets looking for her male lover, while elsewhere he's in isolation and a doppleganger murder scenario is cunningly being played out. Decaë's photography has a moody desperation about it that so fits the story, the use of natural light making fellow French film makers sit up and take notice. While the dialogue, and the caustic aside to arms dealings, ensures we know that Malle can be a sly old fox. He really should have done more noir like pictures. A film that convinces us that Julien and Florence are deeply in love and passionate about each other, and yet they never are once together in the whole movie! It's just one of the many wonderful things about Louis Malle's excellent picture. Remember folks, the camera never lies... 9/10