Fresno Filmworks' 2nd Annual World Film Festival
Friday, Saturday, Sunday
May 5, 6, 7, 2006

Elevator to the Gallows
Sunday May 7, 2006
1:00 pm
The Tower Theatre
815 E. Olive Avenue, Fresno
Festival passes:
$40 - Festival Pass includes all films & invitation to Opening Night Champagne Reception
$20 - Opening Night Film & Opening Night Champagne Reception
$10 - General tickets
$8 - Student & Senior tickets

Synopsis

Elevator to the Gallows is director Louis Malle's 1957 masterpiece of suspense and film noir starring Jeanne Moreau, in the role that catapulted her to international stardom. Long unseen, Elevator is being reissued by Rialto Pictures in a new 35mm restoration supervised by the Malle family. Scheming lovers Julien (Maurice Ronet) and Florence (Jeanne Moreau) engineer the "perfect murder" of her husband. But when Julien attempts to tie up one more loose end (literally... a rope dangling from the dead man's office window), he becomes trapped between floors, with precious minutes ticking away before the police discover the victim's body. A stunning debut that won the then 24-year-old director Louis Malle the prestigious Prix Delluc, France's highest film award, Elevator to the Gallows made an international super-star of cool beauty Moreau, here giving perhaps the most iconic performance of her career. The improvisational score by jazz trumpeter Miles Davis is legendary.

Directed by Louis Malle
1958, France
In French with new English subtitles
35mm; 88 min., b/w

Reviews for Elevator to the Gallows

"As French crime thrillers go, this is about as good as it gets. It's also an important film historically, and to top it off, the jazz score, by Miles Davis, is famous in its own right."
-- Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle

"What turns it fabulous, indeed mythical, is the presence of another entity: Paris at night in the '50s, to the tune of Miles Davis's score as realized in the dappled hues of Henri Decae's gorgeous poetic cinematography."
-- Stephen Hunter, Washington Post

Advance tickets may be purchased at the following locations: Fig Garden Books in Fig Garden Village Shopping Center, The Movies located at 1435 N. Van Ness and the Tower Theatre Box Office, and all TicketMaster outlets, www.ticketmaster.com or at 485-TIXS

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