65th anniversary of Louis Malle's debut film
On January 29, 1958 in France and Turkey on the cinema screens out the film "Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (Elevator to the Gallows)." The film was the directorial debut of 25-year-old Louis Malle.
The film is based on the novel of the same name by Noël Calef, published in 1956. Noël (real name - Nissim) Calef was born in Bulgaria and spent most of his life in France. Noël Kalef wrote about 20 short stories and novels, mostly in the detective genre. He acted as the author of scripts for 6 films, but received the greatest fame as a screenwriter of the film "Elevator to the Gallows".
Filming was carried out from September 23 to November 15, 1957.
The film "Elevator to the Gallows" played an important role not only in the life of Louis Malle and Noël Calef, but also in the creative career of Jeanne Moreau. In the 10 years that preceded the film, Jeanne Moreau played in 20 films, but it was the role in the film by Louis Malle that brought her worldwide fame and reputation as "The Face of French Cinema". The most curious thing is that Malle forbade the actress to use cosmetics during the filming and shot her mostly in natural light, without the use of additional light sources.
The film "Elevator to the Gallows" did not take part in any prestigious film festivals and did not receive film awards, perhaps due to the debutant status of its director. However, the audience and film critics - contemporaries of the picture appreciated it rather reservedly. In France, 1.9 million moviegoers, or 4.3% of the country's population, saw it in the first year of the film's release. Film critics gave the film generally positive reviews, although not without reservations. The most flattering epithets were awarded to the play of Jeanne Moreau and the music of Miles Davis.
Louis Malle's film "Elevator to the Gallows" received much higher ratings from modern film critics. So, the famous French film critic Gérard Crespo in his 2020 review noted:
"Premier long métrage de fiction de Louis Malle... transforma un coup d’essai en coup de maître. Le film arriva en effet comme un coup d’épée dans la mare, alors croupissante, du cinéma français."
Taras Sass, a columnist for the online publication Postcriticism, concluded his laudatory review from 2010 with the following paragraph:
"A classic of French noir, the debut film by Louis Malle, the sparkling film star Jeanne Moreau, a twisted detective story and incomparable musical arrangement from jazz legend Miles Davis. Those are the arguments that are unlikely to entice the average modern viewer to watch this black-and-white film, which celebrated its fiftieth anniversary and copies of which have long been entrenched in the collections of experienced moviegoers. But absolutely in vain. After all, no matter how worn out and banal this phrase is, alas, such films are no longer being made..."
Modern moviegoers, despite the fact that more than one decade has passed since the release of the film, appreciated it very highly. 69% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users rated the film from 8 to 10. Taking into account this indicator and the above, the rating of the film according to FilmGourmand version was 7.9, which allowed the film to take 843rd Rank in the Golden Thousand.
An indirect recognition of the merits of Louis Malle's debut picture can be considered the fact that even such a famous master as Stanislav Govorukhin, in 2012, suddenly decided to create a remake of this film. And made the movie "Weekend". To be honest, it would have been better if he had not done this: the film, according to Govorukhin himself, was simply laughed at by the audience. Moreover, both sophisticated viewers - participants of the Kinotavr film Festival, and ordinary viewers in ordinary cinemas as well.
