In this golden age of home viewing, the Criterion Collection still provides some of the best editions of the best movies ever released, usually with a rich selection of extras and often including audio commentaries (a feature they pioneered, and perhaps the greatest gift ever to film students and cinephiles alike). This column features one Criterion release per week, based on where my interests lead me and what’s available from my local public library.
Louis Malle got his start in feature film directing about the same time as many of the directors of the Nouvelle Vague, but was never really part of that movement. Still, his first feature film, Elevator to the Gallows (1958), shares some characteristics with the Nouvelle Vague films, including shooting with natural light and in real locations. Those choices are part of Malle’s rejection of the Hollywood ethos—instead of seamless storytelling, you get stylized acting and amazing coincidences, and instead of glamorized beauty, you get shadows on the face of one of the most recognizable actors of her generation.
That would be Jeanne Moreau, who wasn’t yet a big star but had been acting professionally on stage for 11 years and in films for 9. Here she plays Florence Carala, a woman unhappily married to a rich industrialist (Jean Wall), and who schemes with her lover Julien Tavernier (Maurice Ronet) to kill her husband (who is also Julien’s boss) and make it look like a suicide.
Julien carefully establishes an alibi for himself, through a stunt involving a grappling hook and some strenuous rope climbing (the character is a veteran of colonial wars in Vietnam and Algeria) but doesn’t realize until he is about to drive off that he left an unmissable clue pointing to himself as the perpetrator. It’s the first of many instances of the characters being not as clever as they think they are, and when he goes back into the building to retrieve the rope, he ends up being trapped in the elevator after the security guard, believing the building to be empty, switches off the power.
The B couple, a florist’s assistant named Véronique (Yori Bertin in her film debut) and her small-time hoodlum boyfriend Louis (Georges Poujouly), come into the story when Louis steals Julien’s car (let the record show that Julien left the engine running, an indication of his carelessness or arrogance or both). Florence recognizes the car driving by and, seeing Véronique but not who is driving, assumes Julien has skipped out on her. Louis and Véronique head off on a spontaneous road trip during which they encounter a German couple (Elga Andersen and Iván Petrovich) who quickly figure out that they’re not really Mr. and Mrs. Julien Tavernier).
The plot of Elevator to the Gallows was adapted from the 1956 noir crime novel of the same name by Noël Calef by Malle and Roger Nimier, the latter a well-known writer of the day and leader of a group of conservative writers who opposed the leftist political activism of writers such as Jean-Paul Sartre. Politics aside, I have no idea how much of the novel remains in the movie, but I do know that Malle and Nimier produced a screenplay with an intricate plot that is perfectly matched by this film’s deliberately unreal visual style (shot by Henri Decaë, whose career stretched from 1941 to 1987).
Modern technology plays a big role in the story: the murder is committed in a modern skyscraper, and were there no elevator, we’d have no story. A second crime takes place in a modern motel complex (which wouldn’t exist without automobile travel), an automatic pencil sharpener provides covering noise in the office, a Bic-style lighter comes in handy when Julien is trapped in the elevator, and a miniature camera provides key evidence of the actual relationships among the characters. I can’t help noticing the similarity with the many cases more recently of people who would likely have gotten away with their crimes had they not kept incriminating photos or videos, often shot by themselves. It’s as if Malle is saying that, while the characters crave everything modern, they’re not quite up to handling it. The distinctive soundtrack by Miles Davis is a perfect evocation of both modernism and loneliness, the latter embodied by Moreau as she walks the streets of Paris, alone, searching for any sign of the lover who seems to have deserted her. | Sarah Boslaugh
Spine #: 335
Technical details: 92 min.; B&W; screen ratio 1.66:1; French.
Edition reviewed: DVD
Extras: interviews with Jeanne Moreau, Louis Malle, Maurice Ronet, and soundtrack pianist René Urtreger; footage of the soundtrack recording session; featurette about the score featuring Jon Faddis and Gary Giddins; Malle’s student film “Crazeologie”; illustrated booklet with essays by Terrence Rafferty and Vincent Malle and excerpts from an interview with Louis Malle.
Fun Fact: Cars featured in Elevator to the Gallows include a Renault Dauphin, a Chevrolet Styleline Convertible, a Mercedes-Benz “Gullwing” 3000 SL (the first production car with direct fuel injection), and an Isetta (a small three-wheeled car first produced in Italy). There’s a nice film studies essay to be written about the symbolism of these various vehicles, because everything is meaningful in this film.
Parting Thought: Véronique has Gardenal (phenobarbital), a barbiturate used to treat seizure disorders, in her medicine cabinet. Is the implication that she has epilepsy or a similar condition, or is it yet another example of modern technology getting ahead of the characters’ ability to handle it?
What? There was no mention of the score by Miles Davis. As important a production element of the film as it’s cinematography.
Hi, Robert, thanks for reading! Sarah did give a mention to the score, it’s in the last sentence of the main review section.