Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud

Plot

The feature-film debut of famed director Louis Malle is an interesting, modern film noir with the classic theme of lovers plotting to kill the husband and make it look like suicide (reminiscent of The Postman Always Rings Twice). Jeanne Moreau, as Florence Carala, gives an astonishing performance, perverse but naive as she leads her young lover down a path that can only lead to doom for both of them. Malle and his cinematographer Henri Decae make extensive use of Paris at night, giving the film the feel of claustrophobia and desperation reminiscent of the classic noir films. The excellent score by Miles Davis adds to the entire effect of this mystery thriller. ~ Linda Rasmussen, Rovi

Review

The first feature of the 24-year-old Louis Malle, this assured film was one of the earliest rumblings of the Nouvelle Vague, a more conservative precursor to Godard's Breathless. Claiming a desire to combine the disparate styles of Bresson and Hitchcock, Malle's film is less a noir than a low-key meditation on the genre, as shots of a disconsolate Jeanne Moreau walking the streets of Paris in search of her lover (Maurice Ronet) are intercut with the adventures of the young couple who have stolen their car. Taking the familiar plot of homicidal lovers, Malle skips past the customary heavy breathing, beginning in medias res as the murder of Moreau's husband is carried out with clinical detachment. Ironically, Malle's older lovers are separated from each other for nearly the entire film, with Ronet's frantic efforts to get away from the scene of the crime almost a parody of the prisoner's calm demeanor in Bresson's contemporaneous A Man Escaped (1956). As the dominoes begin to fall, Moreau is reunited with Ronet, at least on paper, in one of the most elegant busts on celluloid. The melancholy of Miles Davis' improvised score underlines the film's tone of stoic fatalism. ~ Michael Costello, Rovi

Cast

• Jeanne Moreau - Florence Carala
• Maurice Ronet - Julien Tavernier
• Georges Poujouly - Louis
• Lino Ventura - Insp. Cherter
• Jean Wall - Simon Carala
• Felix Marten - Subervie
• Yori Bertin - Veronique

Elga Andersen - Mme. Bencker; Micheline Bona - Genevieve; Jean-Claude Brialy - Chess player at motel; Gérard Darrieu - Maurice; Charles Denner - Inspector Cherier's assistant; Hubert Deschamps - Attorny of State; Jacques Hilling - Garage owner; Marcel Journet; Ivan Petrovich - Horst Bencker; Jacqueline Staup; Marcel Cuvelier; Francois Joux

Credit

Jean Mandaroux - Art Director, Rino Mondellini - Art Director, Francois Leterrier - First Assistant Director, Alain Cavalier - First Assistant Director, Louis Malle - Director, Leonide Azar - Editor, Miles Davis - Composer (Music Score), Boris de Fas - Makeup, Henri Decaë - Cinematographer, Irenee Leriche - Production Manager, Jean Thuillier - Producer, Louis Malle - Screenwriter, Noel Calef - Book Author

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