Elevator To the Gallows (1957)

ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS  (1957)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Louis Malle
    Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly,
    Jean Wall, Charles Denner, Jean-Claude Brialy
An ex-paratrooper working for a high-end arms dealer kills his boss and heads out to a rendezvous with the old man's wife. Remembering a bit of incriminating evidence he left behind, he returns and gets stuck in the elevator. From that point on, things spin out of control for everybody: the killer, the wife, and the reckless young couple who steal the killer's car. Louis Malle's macabre first feature (after some documentary work with Jacques Cousteau) plays like a Hitchcock movie in French: tense, ironic and devious. Moreau at 29 already looks ageless. Musical score by Miles Davis.