Elevator to the Gallows (Louis Malle, 1958)
Rating: 8.6
A wonderfully constructed thriller with a clever yet conventional storyline, told in an unconventional fashion with a superb original score by Miles Davis. Malle, directing first fiction feature, masterfully crafts a noir tale with plenty of tension and suspense following three different plotlines. The only thing that really bothered me were the two murder scenes that really didn't work for me. The first was excusable, although I was still left wanting more, seeing as it was a pretty crucial scene in the plot. Malle blatantly avoided showing violence and edited around it. I was most annoyed when the gun was completely out of the composition, but we hear the sounds of the bullets firing during the murder of the German couple. Aside from those minor complaints, it's a fantastic film.
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