FRANTIC Movie Review

Elevator to the Gallows
Ascenseur pour L'Echafaud

Louis Malle was 25 when he made his directorial feature debut with this 1957 thriller about an ex-paratrooper named Julien (Maurice Ronet) in love with his boss's wife (Jeanne Moreau). Julien knows what has to be done, and the perfect murder he has planned will leave nothing to chance—nothing, that is, except the elevator he becomes stuck in after the murder, leading to his false implication in a different killing. Though Frantic (Elevator to the Gallows in France) is a nifty little suspense film, it's difficult to detect the presence of the extraordinarily gifted director who would burst on the film scene a year later with The Lovers. Incidentally, Frantic was released in America only after the successful release of The Lovers; audiences here must have been a bit puzzled as to why Malle would chose this as his “followup.” (Malle is one of many famous directors whose early career included a suspense thriller; as with Kubrick's The Killing and Spielberg's Duel, it would seem to be a straightforward and often profitable way to develop the basics of film technique.)

NEXT STOP … The Lovers, The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), Double Indemnity

1958 92m/B FR Maurice Ronet, Jeanne Moreau, Georges Poujouly; D: Louis Malle; C: Henri Decae; M: Miles Davis. VHS, 8mm SNC, NOS, VYY