ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS

Maurice Ronet

ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS (aka Ascenseur pour l'echafaud/1958). Director: Louis Malle. France. 

Julien Tavernier (Maurice Ronet of The Champagne Murders) is sleeping with the boss's wife, Florence (Jeanne Moreau of Jules and Jim), who urges him to kill her husband. After the murder, Julien goes back into the office to dispose of some incriminating evidence and gets trapped in the elevator when the power is turned off. Meanwhile young Louis (Georges Poujouly), boyfriend of flower seller Veronique (Yori Bertin) takes off in Julien's car for a joy ride and takes a mildly protesting Veronique with him. On the road they encounter a German couple who befriend them, but when there's a homicide Julien becomes subject of a manhunt despite the fact he's still stuck in an elevator. Which crime will Julien wind up being accused of?

Jeanne Moreau

Elevator to the Gallows is an interesting if minor crime film and the first to be directed by Louis Malle. Although the movie has some interesting twists and situations and a very satisfying ending where no one gets off with anything, it also has one-dimensional characters and Malle (admittedly a very different type of director from, say, Alfred Hitchcock) does virtually nothing to maximize the suspense -- just because people are speaking French doesn't make this a profound drama. The performances are generally good across the board. One could argue that Ronet plays it a little too cool considering his situation but it can also be argued that he is an ex-soldier who keeps his head no matter what.

Georges Poujouly

Georges Poujouly makes an impression as the ever-sullen young baby-faced tough who steals Julien's car. He was a child actor who graduated to adult roles and amassed forty-four credits in France. There are a scattering of good character performances throughout the film as well. Miles Davis contributed a moody jazz score that works fairly well for the movie. An interesting aspect of the film is that the two lovers are never together throughout the entire movie, only seen talking to each other on the telephone at the opening.

Verdict: Interesting film that could have been much more memorable if it had had a better script and taut direction. **1/2. 

JULES AND JIM

Henri Serre and Oskar Werner

JULES AND JIM (aka Jules et Jim/1962). Director: Francois Truffaut. Based on a novel by Henri-Pierre Roche.

French Jim (Henri Serre) and German Jules (Oskar Werner) become the best of friends in Paris, and become a trio when they meet the free-spirited Catherine (Jeanne Moreau of The Yellow Rolls Royce). Eventually she marries Jules and all of them are separated by WW 1. After the war they are reunited, and Catherine transfers her affections to Jim, despite the fact that she and Jules have a young daughter. They live together in a kind of strictly heterosexual menage a trois, but Catherine's screwy personality is such that a lasting happiness with either man may be unlikely for her ...

Jeanne Moreau and Oskar Werner

The "New Wave" Jules and Jim was much admired when it was released and still certainly has plenty of fans among foreign film  enthusiasts. The generally fast-paced film is well-acted by the three leads, it boasts a fine score by Georges Delerue [The Conformist] and beautiful cinematography from Raoul Coutard. There is a free-love, supposedly European frankness to the film that certainly differentiates it from a Hollywood soap opera without necessarily improving upon it. In fact, one can imagine the same story being told by a major Hollywood director who could have given it much more impact, although the downside is that the production code might have insisted on the old moralistic "sin and suffer" approach. The trouble is that the characters of Jules and Jim never quite seem like real people, just sketches made with too-broad brush strokes; instead of seeming sophisticated, they just come off as childish. There's too much of the narrator telling us things about these people instead of letting the film show us. The light touch of the movie, with everyone seeming to accept the situation (without really doing so), is at odds with the utterly melodramatic, indeed somewhat farcical,  developments that wind up the picture. Still, it's just these bizarre touches that probably made the picture stand out when otherwise it might have been forgotten. Jules and Jim is too well-made to dismiss, but I can't quite disagree with those people who think it might have better been titled "Two Dopes and a Skank (who can't make up her mind)." A better Truffaut film is The Story of Adele H. 

Verdict: Like a fair-to-middling French Woody Allen movie, for better or worse. **1/2. 

THE YELLOW ROLLS ROYCE

Alain Delon and Shirley MacLaine

THE YELLOW ROLLS ROYCE (1964). Director: Anthony Asquith. Screenplay by Terence Rattigan

"Oh, God. How I'm going to hate living from now on."

This is a trio of tales loosely tied to the same beautiful title automobile -- copulation occurs in the back seat of the rolls in each story, but even that doesn't make this picture entertaining. Surely a movie built around such a premise could have turned out better than this, but it's as if playwright Rattigan [The Browning Version] decided to throw together scrips and scraps from his discarded idea book to come up with this mess. The first story, starring Rex Harrison [My Fair Lady] as a member of the Foreign Office, is easily the best, and even manages to be somewhat moving in its tale of Harrison being cuckolded by his wife (Jeanne Moreau) and her lover (Edmund Purdom), who works with Harrison, on the day he should be happiest. The second and worst story has to do with a gangster (George C. Scott) traveling in Italy with his moll (Shirley MacLaine) who encounter a handsome man (Alain Delon) who makes tips selling photos to tourists; you can guess what happens. This exercise in tedium can't even be saved by the actors (including Art Carney as Scott's Man Friday) and has a flat wind up to boot. Delon and MacLaine have little chemistry. The third and last story is a contrived bit of business in which a fussy and wealthy woman (Ingrid Bergman) agrees to take a Yugoslav (Omar Sharif) across the border to aid his king and country just as the Germans are attacking. This termagant has more intestinal fortitude than anyone would ever have imagined, but her romance with Sharif is unconvincing, to say the least. (It would have been even less convincing had the more appropriate Katharine Hepburn been cast, as one critic suggested). Bergman is miscast, Scott [The Exorcist III] is excellent as the mobster, Delon succeeds at being charming, Moreau is creditable, and Harrison, with that stiff British upper lip, underplays quite satisfactorily. The best performance, however, is given by a winning and credible Sharif.

Verdict: The first episode is good, but the last two make two hours seem like ten. *1/2.