'Elevator to the Gallows': Louis Malle killer classic, gloriously restored

Before there was Breathless, there was Elevator to the Gallows.

Released in 1958, two years before Jean-Luc Godard's French New Wave classic crashed ashore, rocking world cinema forever, Louis Malle's debut feature - a cool study of murder-gone-wrong accompanied by an even cooler Miles Davis score - moved to a similarly insurgent beat. Malle's black-and-white movie, with Jeanne Moreau prowling nighttime Paris, her face lighted by streetlamps and shop windows, even anticipated the casual criminality and romantic nihilism of Godard's better-known breakthrough film.

Tighter and tauter than Godard's, Malle's adaptation of a Noël Calef novel is also steeped in noir traditions: An adulterous couple plot the death of the woman's wealthy, powerful spouse. Mistakes are made, suspects misidentified. Another couple, younger, more reckless, work their way into the plot, with wickedly ironic results.

The pristine new restoration of Elevator to the Gallows now on view is remarkable. Henri Decaë's cinematography, nimble and elegant, uses natural light (and darkness, and shadow), setting the characters against the crisp modernity of midcentury Paris. Shot in close-up, Moreau is a walking tableau of emotions, moods: desire, guilt, dread, defiance, a daunting allure.

And Maurice Ronet, as Tavernier, the lover, the killer, the troubleshooter who makes one troubling blunder, remains a picture of Gallic poise. Even in his direst moments, trapped in an elevator in an office building in the middle of the night, Tavernier maintains a steely calm. Eventually, under the insistent scrutiny of some overconfident, clownish cops, he buckles - but Ronet has already established his character's hard-boiled pedigree.

And Malle, who would go on to a long, storied career in France and in the U.S., established himself as a talent to be reckoned with. Elevator to the Gallows, killer stuff.

srea@phillynews.com

215-854-5629@Steven_Rea

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Elevator to the Gallows

4 stars out of four.