Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud with Jeanne Moreau: DVD Cover

    Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud
    a.k.a. Frantic, Elevator to the Gallows, Elevator to the Scaffold, Lift to the Scaffold Director: Louis Malle Cast: Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly, Felix Marten

    DVD - 2 Disc Set - Wide Screen / Black & White Learn more

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    • DVD Release Date: 04/25/2006
    • Original Release: 1957
    • Rating: Not Rated
    • Sales Rank: 512

    Viewer Rating: (3 ratings)

    Detailed Rating: "Exciting" See All

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    • Overview
    • Editorial Reviews
    • Scenes
    • Customer Reviews
    • Cast & Crew
    • Full Product Details

    Features

    New, restored high-definition digital transfer; Theatrical trailers; New and improved English subtitle translation; New interview with actor Jeanne Moreau; Archival interviews with director Louis Malle, actors Maurice Ronet and Jeanne Moreau, and original soundtrack session pianist René Urtreger; 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; Malle's student film Crazeologie, featuring the title song by Charlie Parker; Plus a booklet featuring a new essay by critic Terrence Rafferty, an interview with Louis Malle, and a tribute by film producer Vincent Malle

    Full Product Details

    Scene Index

    Disc #1 -- Elevator to the Gallows
    1. "Je T'Aime" [2:43]
    2. Mr. Carala [8:44]
    3. Julien Tavernier [6:35]
    4. Florence Carala [1:41]
    5. Secret Agent Man [2:18]
    6. Miles Apart [2:58]
    7. Night on the Champs-Élysées [3:41]
    8. A Mercedes 300 SL [4:38]
    9. Party in the Benckers' Room [3:12]
    10. "A Good Joke" [2:54]
    11. Night Watchman [6:18]
    12. Friend of Julien's [3:00]
    13. Midnight Getaway [1:14]
    14. "The Tragic Lovers" [3:18]
    15. Police Roundup [3:45]
    16. Scene at the Trappes Motel [6:14]
    17. Breakthrough [4:01]
    18. The Same Man [4:04]
    19. "A Little Riddle for You" [2:54]
    20. "I'll Save You, Julien" [5:07]
    21. Photos [6:38]
    22. Color Bars [5:14]
    Disc #2 -- Elevator to the Gallows
    1. From Cousteau to Bresson [3:25]
    2. Directorial Debut [2:43]
    3. A Clear Premonition [4:19]
    4. Themes Revisited [6:36]
    1. "When I Met Louis" [3:28]
    2. A Revolutionary Film [6:34]
    3. The Actress and Her Director [4:46]
    4. "This Beautiful Lie" [3:09]
    1. Touring With Miles [2:45]
    2. Recording the Score [6:52]
    3. Time in the Spotlight [5:03]
    1. The Cool and the Hip [4:34]
    2. A Fascinating Story [3:37]
    3. Antithesis of Bebop [6:30]
    4. In Louis' Hands [6:55]
    5. Where Miles Went, Jazz Went [3:20]

    Scene Index

    Editorial Reviews

    The feature-film debut of famed director Louis Malle is an interesting, modern film noir with the classic theme of lovers plotting to kill the husband and make it look like suicide (reminiscent of The Postman Always Rings Twice). Jeanne Moreau, as Florence Carala, gives an astonishing performance, perverse but naive as she leads her young lover down a path that can only lead to doom for both of them. Malle and his cinematographer Henri Decae make extensive use of Paris at night, giving the film the feel of claustrophobia and desperation reminiscent of the classic noir films. The excellent score by Miles Davis adds to the entire effect of this mystery thriller. Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide

    Customer Reviews

    • Viewer Rating:
    • Ratings: 3Reviews: 1

    Fifties-Style French Film Noirby Bryan_Cassiday_author

    Reader Rating:
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    October 27, 2008: Elevator to the Gallows" is a deliberately paced outstanding example of fifties-style French film noir. Accompanied by a desolate tenor sax in its score, this film does not have the jackhammer drive and breathtaking momentum of contemporary thrillers. What it lacks in nail-biting suspense, however, it more than compensates for with character and story line.

    A motley collection of well-limned intriguing characters become ensared in an intricate web of malevolence that is spun by an unhappy, alienated woman who decides to use her lover as a cat's-paw to do away with her wealthy corporate husband.

    In the process, two joyriding teenagers are caught in the web after they rob the murderer's expensive car while he is stuck in the company elevator during his botched attempt to flee from the scene of his recently perpetrated crime. Trapped by circumstances beyond his control and desperate to escape, like all typical film-noir antiheroes, he can do nothing--no matter how hard he struggles--but meet his miserable fate when the elevator finally starts up again.

    If you like Jean-Pierre Melville noir films like "Le Samourai," you should savor watching the various characters of "Elevator" succumb to their fates.

    --Bryan Cassiday, author of "Fete of Death

    I Also Recommend: The Samurai, Fete Of Death.