Lift to the Scaffold

Julien Tavernier (Maurice Ronet) is having an affair with his boss’s wife, Florence Carala (Jeanne Moreau). Together they plan an elaborate murder, set up to look like a suicide, which Julien executes perfectly… except for one minor detail. Having forgotten to dispose of a vital piece of evidence, he returns to the scene of the crime, but when the building’s power is turned off he finds himself trapped in a lift the whole night. While a bemused Florence aimlessly wanders in wait for her lover and partner in crime, a young delinquent steals Julien’s car and takes off to the countryside with his girlfriend. The young couple get into trouble of their own and the supposedly perfect crime turns into a complex nightmare.

Louis Malle’s debut (fictional) feature must rank as one of the greatest in cinema and thoroughly deserved its prestigious 1958 Louis-Delluc award for best French film. This assured work mixes a range of cinematic styles with great skill. Malle himself described the film as a (seemingly incongruous) mix of Hitchcock and Bresson. Indeed, while the spousal murder plot brings to mind the former’s Dial M for Murder, the detailed of observation of Ronet’s entrapment is straight out of the latter’s A Man Escaped (on which Malle worked as assistant director).

Henri Decae’s photography is exquisite; his stark tones capturing Paris by night in all its wonder and menace. Jeanne Moreau’s troubled figure against this backdrop is a vision. Add to this an intelligent, air-tight script contrasted by Miles Davis’ free-wheeling, improvised score (jazz fan Malle requested him personally to compose it), and you have a film that will have you have gripped from start to finish.