Elevator to the Gallows (1958)

Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (1958)

aka Elevator to the Gallows

starring Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly, Yori Bertin

directed by Louis Malle

91 minutes

in French with English subtitles

Julien Tavernier (Maurice Ronet) is having an affair with Florence Carala (Jeanne Moreau), the wife of his boss. He kills his boss and stages it to look like a suicide. He is getting ready to leave the office when he realizes that he left a piece of evidence behind. He runs back into the building and jumps on the elevator.

It is the end of the day and the building is shutdown while Julien is in the elevator, which no one saw him enter. He is stuck in the elevator, between floors. Louis (Georges Poujouly) and Veronique (Yori Bertin) steal Julien's car while he is in the building and drive around for a while.

Florence waits for Julien at a café. She knew what he was planning to do. She wonders if he chickened out, when he doesn't show up. She tries various other cafes but no one has seen Julien. She sees his car pass her on the street. Veronique is hanging out the passenger side window. The driver's face is obscured. Florence assumes that it is Julien behind the wheel.

Julien tries numerous times, all unsuccessfully, to escape from the elevator. Louis and Veronique check into a motel, under the names of Mr. and Mrs. Julien Tavernier. Louis and Veronique hang out with a German couple who are also staying at the motel. Louis decides in the middle of the night that they should steal the German's car. The German catches them in the act.

The German pulls a gun on them. Louis pulls out the gun that he found in the glove compartment of Julien's car. Louis shoots and kills the German couple.

The police are called. They assume. based on the names that Louis and Veronique used when they checked in, that Julien is the killer and start looking for him. 

Thoughts

I saw this movie as part of the 2024 edition of the Noir City DC film festival. This movie was the front half of a double feature. The back half of the double feature was Strongroom (1962).

The soundtrack was composed and performed by Miles Davis and is quite good.

Lino Ventura played the part of a police detective named Cherrier. He doesn't enter the picture until at least the latter way point of the movie. I know him best from Le Deuxième Souffle (1966), which I watched about a year ago.

This is a crazy complicated story. I wasn't sure what was going on or where it was going when I first started watching it. The story slowly started to come together. The ending was really good.