Elevator to the Gallows

I’ve never really given much thought about what I would consider the perfect crime. I’m not exactly ambitious so it probably wouldn’t extend much further then trying to purchase comics for my collection without Anna’s knowledge. She watches the movies and the Wii games like a hawk after all, so if I want to buy something perfectly crappy without having to listen to her grumble to me about it comics are really my only legitimate avenue of deception. Hey, I already feel guilty about buying Spider-Man comics, I don’t need her adding to my own self-imposed lecture.

Now sure, I found the whole Brand New Day storyline interesting at first, as writing out Mary Jane was the kind of huge shakeup that might recover the comic from the truly terrible Civil War storylines I had previously suffered through. But the whole concept has quickly stagnated, resulting in what now appears as nothing more then a blatant attempt at erasing everything J Michael Straczynski had written over the length of his tenure.

Now I know JMS wasn’t exactly popular with the Marvel fanboys. I mean really, attempting to add more depth to a character that was over 40 years old was simply unacceptable. Marvel and its fans simply would rather have numerous Spider-Man books that follow a basic plot by numbers arc rather then suffer through something that might actually result in a new experience for both the character and the reader.

So what does Marvel do after JMS finally steps aside? They decide to simply write out Mary Jane (Huh?), switch to multiple writing teams so they can publish a book every single week (Why?) and follow JMS’ nasty habit of introducing a brand new villain every single issue (Oh yeah, he also killed Mary Jane when he first started writing for Spider-Man but I guess trying that again was too much for Marvel to handle a second time.) And while JMS was a talented enough writer that he could still weave together this horde of new villains into interesting stories, this new batch of writers lacks the cohesion to pull it off. Simply put, this “ambitious” experiment is quickly dissolving into an increasingly larger mess with each passing moment that inevitably leaves me regretting my purchases. To put it simply, Spider-Man has ceased being a guilty pleasure and now just leaves me feeling guilty.

But the fate of Spider-Man is not a concern for those interested in highbrow fare. And the resulting mess is hardly surprising considering the disjointed and poorly executed nature of the plan. But surely a similar disaster would not happen to a rather ill-meaning French couple with murder on their minds.

Florence (Jeanne Moreau) and Julien (Maurice Ronet) are lovers plotting the murder of Florence’s husband, and Julien’s boss, Simon Carala (Jean Wall). The plan is simple, Julien scales the outside of his office building to his boss’ office, where he carefully enters and proceeds to shoot him, then manipulates the scene so as it will look like a suicide. Julien then return the same way he came, then leaves the building with a receptionist and a security guard so as to create an alibi. From there he will meet with Florence and they will drive off into the unset, so they might live happily ever after.

But as Julien is driving off he remembers that he forgot to grab the rope he used to climb the building and he rushes back inside. Unfortunately, Julien becomes trapped inside the building’s elevator, unable to retrieve the rope or escape to safety. Soon after becoming trapped, a local flower girl who knows Julien, Veronique (Yori Bertin), and her boyfriend Louis (Georges Poujouly) steal Julien’s car and race off into the sunset in the hopes of finding an adventure of their own. But much like Julien, their plans are also soon complicated as they race to flee from their horrific crimes.

But while Elevator to the Gallows focuses primarily on the dual storylines of Julien struggling to escape an elevator and Veronique and Louis trying to play swinging rogues a third storyline emerges that follows Florence as she struggles to deal with what she believes is the betrayal of Julien. As she wanders the streets she examines both the predicament she is now in and the potential life she dreamed of with Julien.

While the other storylines add mystery and heavy doses of tension to Elevators to the Gallows, it is Florence’s that adds a heaping dose of pathos that balances out the film and provides for a far more complex and interesting tale then is found in your standard film noir. The shifting stories are thrilling to follow, as they seamlessly twist and turn until you are left unable to discern where they will take you next. The mystery isn’t what drives this film, but the characters certainly do.

Coupled with the shifting storylines is an absolutely stunning improvisational score by jazz great Miles Davis. The trumpet follows the mood of each character, delightedly dancing around as Veronique and Louis play grownups, bitterly embraces despair as Florence wanders the streets and is assaulted by percussion as Julien attempts to escape from the elevator and reclaim the dreams he and Florence shared only hours earlier. The score envelops each character as it leads them down their individual tragic paths. It is truly worthy of all the praise that has been heaped upon it.

But for all the great moments in Elevator to the Gallows, it is not without its faults. The plot is deeply flawed, continually ignoring likely reactions for unlikely circumstance in order to blithely heap on melodrama. Even a slightly discerning viewer will wonder just how they have haphazardly wandered into a Shakespearean tragedy rather than a crime thriller. This directly results in a decisively uneven tale that often treads dangerously close to soap opera styled plotting. For its day it was most assuredly creative and cutting edge, but the passage of five decades of time has resulted in a vastly dulled edge.

Suffering a similar fate is the acting, as it can take most of the film to get used to the overly dramatic deliveries and blatant over acting strung throughout the film that was typical of the time. Moreau is clearly the worst transgressor, wandering around in such an emotional squalor as for it to be almost laughable. Granted she isn’t quite delivering hysterics about Gremlins on plane wings, but she is comfortably sitting in first class on the same plane as Shatner as she saunters through several torrential downpours and begins to make drunken passes at male colleagues before she is detained by the police. For a women who is supposed to represent the upper echelon of French culture, her delivery would no longer qualify as dignified.

But while the acting and the plotting are far from refined, they are still relatively easy to dismiss as mere signs of the times then anything truly terminal. Such is not the case with the ending, which is a true head scratcher. While it succeeds in being quite powerful, it does not change the fact that if one spends more then just a few seconds contemplating the curious destination that Elevator to the Gallows has arrived at, that it scarcely exists in any realm of plausibility and has all the markings of blatantly manipulating the audience. Thus it underscores rather perfectly that while Elevator to the Gallows is brimming with style, at all the most inopportune moments it suffers from a serious lack of substance that make any potential attempt at repeat viewings an unenviable chore.