Elevator to the Gallows

A woman and her lover kill her husband, and when he goes back into the building for evidence he gets stuck in the lift. The offices have closed, the power is off, and night begins. She spends it walking through Paris waiting for him. It is Louis Malle's first feature and one of the announcements of the French New Wave. The score is an event on its own. After watching the film briefly, Miles Davis improvised the entire thing in a single four-hour session on 4 December 1957. He worked in modes rather than chord changes, and the approach went on to influence both jazz and film scoring. Henri Decae shot it. The sequences of Jeanne Moreau in the street, lit only by shop windows and street lamps, were radical at the time. Using natural light instead of heavy makeup was received as a new way of looking at a woman. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 93 percent and Metacritic at 94. Who it is for: anyone who loves noir and jazz at once. The walking sequences alone are enough. Who it is not for: viewers wanting a tightly built crime plot. Several of the coincidences read as too convenient now.