It was the Perfect Crime… Until It wasn’t: TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET is Louis Malle’s Elevator to the Gallows (1958), with Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, and Jean Wall.

By David in TN
Friday, March 20, 2020 at 1:42:00 P.M. EDT

TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET is Louis Malle’s Elevator to the Gallows (1958), with Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, and Jean Wall.

This is a French film released in the United States in 1961. It’s an example of the proverbial Perfect Crime Goes Bad.

Femme Fatale Jeanne Moreau persuades her lover (Ronet) to kill her husband (Wall) in his office and make it look like a suicide. Ronet eagerly does the crime, but is trapped in an elevator when he returns to remove a piece of evidence he left behind.

I’ve never seen Elevator to the Gallows before but, in those days especially, French films were said to be more “realistic” than American films.