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Film Elevator to the Gallows (1957)

  • Elevator_000_large

In noir tradition, antiheroes' fail-safe schemes always seem to catch on that one inconvenient snag: fate. For its French Crime Wave series, Film Forum has programmed five weeks of these unforeseen underworld setbacks. The early Nouvelle Vague thriller Elevator to the Gallows is a faultless illustration of the genre, leaving its machinations to a machine — the lovers' future hangs on a malfunctioning elevator. Jolie laide Jeanne Moreau stands out as the tycoon's wife who enlists her ex-paratrooper lover to fake her husband's suicide. Underrated auteur Louis Malle maintains an up-and-down mood throughout, one fraught with desperation and a dash of beatnik cool courtesy of Miles Davis' improvised score.

– Jason Jude Chan

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