Ok, we just wrote about it and we have it sitting here in front of us, so why not get into “Elevator To The Gallows” a tiny bit more. As just noted, the amazing French crime noir is the remarkable first feature of estimable Gallic director Louis Malle who passed away in 1995 (he was married to Candice Bergen for fifteen years). Malle got his start with underwater explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau and became a camera operator on his Calypso eventually co-directing the Oscar and Palme d’Or-winning 1956 documentary “The Silent World.”
In 1958, Malle released his feature-length debut, “Ascenseur pour l’échafaud,” aka “Elevator To the Gallows” starring the startling beautiful Jeanne Moreau, who became an international star after the film and would continue working with him for years afterwards in such classics as the existential ennui blueprint, “The Fire Within” and the controversial and scandalous for its time,”The Lovers.”
Blah, blah, blah, right? Back to our point. One of the choice decisions the sharp Malle made on his debut, and a total feather in his cinematic cap, was convincing and hiring Miles Davis to compose his first ever film score for ‘Gallows.’ Jazz critic Phil Johnson apparently called the soundtrack, “the loneliest trumpet sound you will ever hear, and the model for sad-core music ever since. Hear it and weep,” which we can’t disagree, its replete with emotional expression on the rainy and empty Champs-Élysées; though their are also many ominous and anxiety-ridden passages as well. Here’s some samples if you’ve never heard.
Davis was evidently a big fan of Malle’s films before he even was asked to participate in the film. “I went to Paris again [1956] …and it was during this trip that I met French filmaker Louis Malle through Juliette Greco. He told me he had always loved my music and that he wanted me to write the musical score for his new film, L’Ascenseur pour l’echafaud. I agreed to do it and it was a great learning experience, because I had never written a music score for a film before. I would look at the rushes of the film and get musical ideas to write down. Since it was about a murder and was supposed to be a suspense movie, I used this old, gloomy, dark building where I had the musicians play. I thought it would give the music atmosphere, and it did.”
It’s quite the incredible movie and score and we highly recommend.
Download: Miles Davis – “Diner Au Motel”
Download: Miles Davis – “L’Assassinat De Carala”
Download: Miles Davis – “Ascenseur (Evasion De Julien)”
