Elevator to the Gallows (1958, Louis Malle)
Like all good heist / crime / murder caper films, Elevator to the Gallows proves that despite meticulous scheming, there is no such thing as the perfect plan. Unlike other caper films, however, Elevator is full of interestingly drawn out wrinkles, thoughtful plotting, and an interesting comparison between premeditation and impulse. We begin by meeting Julien and Florence, a pair of lovers intent on killing Florence’s husband, Simon Carala, who also happens to be Julien’s boss, making it look like a suicide in the process.
One has to stretch their imagination a bit to accept the actual plan as flawless. It involves Julien, explained to be a former Foreign Legion parachutist, rappelling by rope up to Simon’s office, killing him, locking the office door from the inside, then rappelling down again. The leap involves the general public never bothering to look up at any point as the office borders a busy street. But, if the viewer can swallow that, the rest is ultimately believable, if not amazingly unfortunate for many characters.
In a Hitchcockian-like twist, Julien realizes from the street below that he has left the rope dangling from the office window. (D’oh!) He leaves his car in front of the building, with the keys in the ignition (oh, for simpler times), and attempts to fix the situation. Having removed the rope, and assumedly putting himself in the clear, Julien becomes trapped in the elevator when the office building closes for the weekend. Meanwhile, a local flower girl, an acquaintance of Julien’s, and her boyfriend steal the car out front and go for a joyride. Florence, of course, happens to see Julien’s unique car driving by with the lovely young flower girl in the passenger seat, and thinks that Julien has betrayed her. Holy twist of fate, Batman!
As Julien tries to escape his tiny prison, Florence walks the streets of Paris in fear and doubt, hoping for the best, but fearing the worst. The two youngsters who stole the car get into even more trouble by registering at a hotel under Julien’s name and committing a crime in an entirely impulsive fashion. Jinkies! There are even further twists ahead, with plenty of thrills, near misses and tragedies, but I’ll leave those for you to discover. What makes this film work is its steady pace. Malle doesn’t try to create tension with forced rapidity. Julien is in the elevator for almost the entire film. His attempts to escape are purposely realistic and arduous. Jeanne Moreau’s turn as Florence is a major highlight of the film. Her scenes are wondrously fraught with inner turmoil, accented by the now legendary film score by Miles Davis. Davis’ trumpet fills the film with loneliness, a longing feeling that was mastered by the musician a mere two years later on his landmark, Kind of Blue.
Pickpocket (1959, Robert Bresson)
Pickpocket is a compact gem of a picture. It is as tight as the intricate movements required for the agile moves within. The story is simple enough. Michel is a pickpocket, living in a tiny apartment, making small time scores to live. The first such ‘lift’ we see is at a horse race. The police detain Michel. They suspect him of the theft, but having no concrete evidence, let him go. Michel is emotionless throughout the film, obsessed only with the art of the steal. At one point, he learns more from a mentor, and we become privy to a series of amazingly filmed tricks of the trade. Buttons are cut, newspapers act as shields, wallets are lifted out of coat pockets and dropped safely to a hand waiting below, only to be stripped of their money and delicately returned to the owners. The moves are highly choreographed, and in their way, beautiful.
Meanwhile, Michel’s mother is ailing, tended to by the young Jeanne, a lady who we think could possibly redeem Michel. But throughout the film, we start to realize that Michel may not be redeemable. The thrill of the crime is everything to him, and is one of the few ways he actually interacts with people. It is a psychosexual drama played out in front of our eyes, and we realize at some point in this compact film that there is likely no happy ending. Regardless, Pickpocket is an amazing film, meticulously constructed, much like the actual act of pickpocketing. Those close-up scenes of the lifts alone are worth it, with us as viewers feeling the immense amount of tension and anxiety that Michel never shows on his stone, expressionless face.
Rififi (1955, Jules Dassin)
Rififi is probably the one heist film on which all other successful heist films are based. Reservoir Dogs, Ocean’s 11, and many others all owe gratitude to Rififi and its director, Jules Dassin. Dassin, heralded for The Naked City, yet blacklisted by the HUAC, retreated to France to find work. Originally, Rififi was to be directed by the great Jean-Pierre Melville, but he bowed out for Dassin. It is the ultimate archetypal heist film. We start with a veteran criminal, Tony, just out of jail (Danny Ocean, anyone?) and a proposition for a heist that he initially turns down, but then perfects and enlarges after finding out his woman left him for a goon.
A crack team is assembled for the project, in which they drill through the ceiling of a jeweler’s shop from an apartment above, including the director himself playing the role of César, a safe cracker, and Robert Manuel playing Mario, an over-the-top yet charming lothario. The caper itself takes place over a half hour, supremely detailed, sans music or dialogue. All we see is the plan being executed with every bit of minutiae played out for the viewer, and you can’t take your eyes off of it.
But, of course, every criminal plan must go awry, otherwise there is no real conflict. César’s lack of foresight gets the gang noticed, and the goon closes in on our central figure, the jailbird Tony. The goon kidnaps Tony’s nephew, and Tony must rescue him. The rest of the film becomes a race against time and has a memorable ending. Rififi is the ultimate crime film, and one by which all others must be compared.
Bob le Flambeur (1955, Jean-Pierre Melville)
While Dassin was making Rififi, Jean-Pierre Melville was making Bob le Flambeur, a story that shares several elements with the former. Roger Duchesne plays Bob, a well-regarded member of his community who has had a long unlucky streak and is nearly broke. Hearing from a friend that a nearby casino stores a lot of cash, he hatches a plot and assembles a team to pull off the heist. In the meantime, he meets Anne, a gorgeous young free spirit who ends up dating his partner in crime, Paolo.
Bob also shares a fond friendship with a police inspector, Ledru, whose life Bob had once saved. As such, Ledru tends to overlook some of Bob’s dealings, though warns him off bigger crimes. Anne ‘accidentally’ lets Ledru in on the big heist and Ledru races off to warn Bob. In a twist of fate, Bob is having the biggest run of luck he’s ever had, winning big at the gambling table, making him late for the heist. What ensues is tragic, but ultimately we feel that Bob will be relatively unaffected, and things might even be improving for Bob in the long run.
While Bob le Flambeur might not have the same inner turmoil as in Pickpocket, or the intricacies of a plan like in Rififi, or the myriad twists and turns of Elevator, we do get to the heart of Bob and what makes him unique. This is what makes Melville’s movies so striking and memorable, as he later does with such great films as Le Samourai. It is Bob’s relationships, those with Ledru, Anne, Paolo, and his community that define him, not his crimes, his past or his luck, though those do paint a more detailed picture. In the end, we are rooting for Bob, and we don’t necessarily do that with Julien, Michel or Tony.
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