Monday, February 18, 2008

Ascenseur pour l'échafaud


Tuesday February 19th screening.

Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (Lift to the Scaffold). Louis Malle, 1958. Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet.

Malle's one and only Série noire experiment turned out to be one of the most elegant examples of the genre. The plot twists around the familiar tale of murder commited by an adulturous lover in order to dispose of an inconvenient husband. Watch out for the intriguing desktop timepiece and later in the film, look for the fabulous gull-wing Mercedes showing off state of the art 1950's fuel injection. Out-classes anything either Godard or Antonioni managed to sneak into the properties budget, even Clarkson would have been impressed.

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