Ascenseur pour l'échafaud

Infobox Film
name = Ascenseur pour l'échafaud


image_size =
caption = Original theatrical poster.
director = Louis Malle
producer = Jean Thuillier
writer = Noël Calef
Louis Malle
Roger Nimier
narrator =
starring = Jeanne Moreau
Maurice Ronet
Georges Poujouly
Yori Bertin
music = Miles Davis
cinematography = Henri Decaë
editing = Léonide Azar
distributor = Rialto Pictures
released = flagicon|France January 29, 1958
flagicon|USA June 10, 1961
runtime = 88 min
country = France
language = French
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id = 1:18507
imdb_id = 0051378

"Ascenseur pour l'échafaud" is a 1958 French film directed by Louis Malle. It was released as "Elevator to the Gallows" in the USA and as "Lift to the Scaffold" in the UK. It stars Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet as criminal lovers whose perfect crime begins to unravel when Ronet is trapped in an elevator. The film is often associated by critics with the film noir style.Fact|date=August 2007

The score by Miles Davis has been described by jazz critic Phil Johnson as "the loneliest trumpet sound you will ever hear, and the model for sad-core music ever since. Hear it and weep." [Phil Johnson, "Discs: Jazz—Miles Davis/"Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud" (Fontana)," "Independent on Sunday", March 14, 2004.]

ynopsis

The central characters, a pair of lovers, plan the perfect crime—the murder of the woman's husband, Simon Carala. The murderer, Julien Tavernier an ex-Foreign Legion parachutist officer veteran of Indochina and Algeria, climbs on a rope up the office block to kill the husband in his office without being seen, but on going to his car, realizes that he has left the rope dangling outside the building. Leaving his expensive car unlocked and with the keys in the ignition, he returns to remove the evidence, but in doing so becomes trapped in the lift as the building closes down for the weekend. In the meantime, the car is stolen by a young couple, Louis and Veronique, who has admired Julien. Louis discovers Julien's pistol and his miniature camera in the glove box and fantasizes about being a secret agent and war hero. They stay overnight with a German couple with a preference for fast cars and a swinging lifestyle at a motel with Louis embarrassing himself by telling war stories supposedly of his own experiences. Veronique takes pictures of the two couples with Tavernier's camera. When Louis attempts to steal their luxury car, he is caught out and shoots them with Julien's handgun. While the police still consider Carala's death a suicide, Julien is charged with the killing of the Germans, and his lift-related alibi is not believed. Much of the suspense comes from Julien's attempt to escape from the lift. Although he succeeds, the murder plot is eventually discovered through photographs taken by the young couple with the camera they find in his car that also contains photographs of Julien and Carala's wife.

References

External links

*
* [http://www.noiroftheweek.com/2008/06/elevator-to-gallows-ascenseur-pour.html Noir of the Week which includes two trailers for the film]
* [http://www.criterion.com/asp/release.asp?id=335&eid=472&section=essay "Louis Malle on the Ground Floor" essay] by Terrence Rafferty at The Criterion Collection
* [http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/music270/projects/s2005/ebb32/Frantic.html "Elevator to the Gallows": A Jazz Film of Collaborative Integrity] , a detailed academic discussion of film and score, with clips