Saturday Matinee Classics/Enzian Film Club
Enzian Film Club: Summer School Edition
Summer school is in session! Our Enzian Film Club professors are on a well-deserved vacation, but you’ve still got a lot to learn. Join us June–August for screenings and talkbacks with Enzian programmers and community guests, and keep your brain (or at least your social skills) sharp until our return to class in September. It might not be Driver’s Ed, but it’s better than independent study.
For his feature debut, twenty-four-year-old Louis Malle (Atlantic City, Au Revoir Les Enfants) brought together a mesmerizing performance by Jeanne Moreau (Jules and Jim), evocative cinematography by Henri Decaë (Le Samouraï), and a now legendary jazz score by Miles Davis. Taking place over the course of one restless Paris night, Malle’s richly atmospheric crime thriller stars Moreau and Maurice Ronet as lovers whose plan to murder her husband (his boss) goes awry, setting off a chain of events that seals their fate.
A career touchstone for its director and female star, Elevator to the Gallows was an astonishing beginning to Malle’s eclectic body of work, and it established Moreau as one of the most captivating actors ever to grace the screen.
1958, 92 minutes, France, In French and German with English Subtitles, Directed by Louis Malle, Not Rated
“A noir masterpiece!”
– Roger Ebert, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
“Few debuts come punchier, cooler, and more influential than Louis Malle's 1958 thriller about a Parisian murder plan unravelling, scene by fateful scene.”
– Tim Robey, DAILY TELEGRAPH (UK)
“Elevator to the Gallows married a new kind of jazz to a new kind of cinema, and created something altogether sublime.”
– Tina Hassannia, THE VILLAGE VOICE
“If you've never seen this 1957 film-noir gem, you should be seduced by the cool nocturnal cinematography of Henri Decae and the languid improvisational sounds of Miles Davis.”
– Jan Stuart, NEWSDAY
