![Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/e5/a7/001da7e5_medium.jpeg)
Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]
![Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/e5/a7/001da7e5.jpeg)
Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]
A Film by Louis Malle
2xDVD9 | ISO+MDS | NTSC 16:9 | Cover + Booklet | 01:31:24 | 5,70 Gb + 6,10 Gb
Audio: French AC3 1.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subs: English
Genre: Crime, Film-Noir, Thriller | France
A Film by Louis Malle
2xDVD9 | ISO+MDS | NTSC 16:9 | Cover + Booklet | 01:31:24 | 5,70 Gb + 6,10 Gb
Audio: French AC3 1.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subs: English
Genre: Crime, Film-Noir, Thriller | France
In his mesmerizing debut feature, twenty-four-year-old director Louis Malle brought together the beauty of Jeanne Moreau, the camerawork of Henri Decaë, and a now legendary score by Miles Davis. A touchstone of the careers of both its star and director, Elevator to the Gallows is a richly atmospheric thriller of murder and mistaken identity unfolding over one restless Parisian night.
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The title of Louis Malle’s feature debut, Elevator to the Gallows (Ascenseur pour l’échafaud), is something of a sick joke and a perfect summation of both the film itself and the film noir genre from which it derives its raison d’être. On the literal level, an elevator plays a major role in the film; in fact, the elevator is the story’s lynchpin, as its unexpected stasis transforms it into a temporary coffin that seals the fate of the film’s protagonist, ensuring that he does not get away with his murder-for-love plot. At the same time, though, Elevator to the Gallows is perfect shorthand for the working sensibility of virtually every film noir, as they almost invariably take the haunted protagonist on a slow, but inevitable ride to death.![Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/fd/a7/001da7fd_medium.jpeg)
Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]
![Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]]()
In this case, the protagonist is Julien Tavernier (Maurice Ronet), a war veteran-turned-businessman who, in the film’s opening passages, murders his boss and makes it look like a suicide. The murder is intricately planned and flawlessly executed. All Julien has to do is leave the modernist glass-and-cement office building and reunite with Florence Carala (Jeanne Moreau), the boss’s much younger wife with whom he has been having an affair (hence the need to knock off the old man). However, fate is never on the side of film noir protagonists, and just before making his escape, Julien realizes that he has left behind an incriminating piece of evidence. He returns to the building only to find himself trapped in the elevator when the power is turned off for the weekend.![Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/fe/a7/001da7fe_medium.jpeg)
Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]
![Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]]()
Meanwhile, things go from bad to worse as Louis (Georges Poujouly) and Veronique (Yori Bertin), two Parisian kids with nothing better to do, steal Julien’s car and take a joyride that ends in murder at a hotel where they have registered as “Mr. and Mrs. Julien Tavernier.” Thus, even if Julien’s attempt to disguise his boss’s murder as suicide succeeds, he has been implicated in another murder, which all but ensures that he will pay the ultimate price. The only question is whether he will be caught for his own murder or someone else’s.![Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/ff/a7/001da7ff_medium.jpeg)
Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]
![Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]]()
Elevator to the Gallows is justly famous on a number of levels. First, it was the debut of Louis Malle, who worked on the fringes of the vaunted New Wave in France throughout the 1960s, but was never fully a member, largely because his multi-varied work (he never seemed to make the same film twice) couldn’t fit easily into an auterist analysis. As his only clear-cut genre effort, the film stands out from the rest of Malle’s work; it bears only the faintest traces of the absorbing humanism that would define most of his career. Rather, Elevator to the Gallows is a clockwork thriller, primed and executed with a ruthless intensity that suggests a filmmaker of great skill and dexterity (Malle was only 25 when it was released).![Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/00/a8/001da800_medium.jpeg)
Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]
![Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]]()
The film also features a largely improvised score by the great American jazz artist Miles Davis, which was recorded in a single session with a handful of musicians. The music throughout the film is nothing short of amazing in the way it grabs center stage, but then quietly recedes, both underlining the action and defining it. There is an essence of cool detachment in the film that is unmistakably related to the jazz score, and it isn’t surprising that so many of the New Wave filmmakers would incorporate similar music into their films.![Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/01/a8/001da801_medium.jpeg)
Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]
![Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]]()
However, part of the reason Elevator to the Gallows works so well is because Malle doesn’t allow it to be just an exercise in style and tone. Rather, he imbues the film with a sense of hopeless romanticism, embodied primarily in Jean Moreau’s Florence, who is forced to wander the Parisian streets all night (shot beautifully by Henri Decaë, who would lens François Truffaut’s seminal The 400 Blows the next year) like a lost spirit while her lover fatefully remains trapped in the elevator. Believing that Julien has left with another woman, she nevertheless refuses to give up on him, which gives weight to the proclamations of love she gives over the phone in the film’s ravishing opening close-ups.![Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/02/a8/001da802_medium.jpeg)
Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]
![Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]]()
Despite having worked in film for nearly two decades by 1958, Elevator to the Gallows was the film that made Moreau a star, largely because Malle was the first director to really understand how to use her intense sensuality. Florence’s love for Julien and her refusal to give up on him gives the film an undercurrent of pained romantic longing that softens its modern-cool detachment. It comes very close to being a thriller with heart.James Kendrick, QNetwork
![Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/fd/a7/001da7fd.jpeg)
![Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/fe/a7/001da7fe.jpeg)
![Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/ff/a7/001da7ff.jpeg)
![Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/00/a8/001da800.jpeg)
![Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/01/a8/001da801.jpeg)
![Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/02/a8/001da802.jpeg)
![Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/04/a8/001da804_medium.jpeg)
Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]
![Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/04/a8/001da804.jpeg)
SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE DISC SET:
Disc One:
• New, restored high-definition digital transfer
• Theatrical trailers
• New and improved English subtitle translation
Disc Two:
• New interview with actor Jeanne Moreau (17:58)
• Archival interviews with Louis Malle (17:04), actors Maurice Ronet (4:36) and Moreau, and original soundtrack session pianist René Urtreger
• Malle and Moreau at Cannes (10:38)
• Footage of Miles Davis and Louis Malle from the soundtrack recording session
• New video program about the score with jazz trumpeter Jon Faddis and critic Gary Giddins (24:58)
• Malle's student film Crazeologie, featuring the title song by Charlie Parker (6:16)
• Theatrical trailers
• Liner notes booklet featuring essay by critic Terrence Rafferty, an interview with Louis Malle, and a tribute by film producer Vincent Malle
![Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/05/a8/001da805_medium.jpeg)
Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]
![Elevator to the Gallows (1958) [The Criterion Collection #335]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/05/a8/001da805.jpeg)
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