O Elevador da Morte

For some time now those film lovers who have a kink for film noir have debated about years – the beginning and ending of this most wonderful style of film making. Rarely is French film noir taken into consideration, daft really since some quite superb French noir can be found in the 1960s, as America tailed off towards the back end of the 50s with their fascination for noir, some French film makers picked up the torch and kept it alight.

Le monte-charge (1962) (The Lift/The Hoist/The Elevator…) is a fine exponent of Frenchie noir. Directed by Marcel Bluwal and co-written by Bluwal with Frederic Dard, story pitches Robert Herbin (Robert Hossein) into a murky Hitchcockian labyrinth among the back streets of Argenteuil. Herbin has just served 7 years in prison and is in town breaking his parole requirements out of genuine necessity. Quickly becoming enamoured with Martha Dravet (Lea Massari), whom he meets in a café, Herbin is spun into a sexually tinged game of cat and mouse with the sultry siren.

A she-wolf in cat-skin clothing?

Pic begins in deathly silence as Herbin moves about the shadow bathed buildings and moist glistening streets, from the off you know we are in noirville. He adorns a trench coat while she is attired in a wild cat skinned coat, noir dude and femme fatale in full effect! She has a child in tow as well, who is quickly dispatched to the apartment bedroom, left to sleep as Herbin and Dravet indulge in sexual frustrations, heartache yearnings and desperations. They often leave the apartment, toing and froing between noir tinted locales, the caged elevator the slow moving MacGuffin a focal point of some considerably visual power and plot importance.

Then a body turns up, or does it? It's murky out there, she's fraught, he's confused, and when another man enters the fray, it gets messy and the crafty plot begins to unravel. Leading to a finale that doesn't disappoint the noir faithful. Bluwal and his cinematographer, Andre Bac, gleefully indulge in the staples of noir, with high-angled shots and a ream of murky exterior sequences. The script is a doozy, full of sexual energy, brought to life by the excellent Hossein and Massari, while Georges Delerue's musical score is perfectly pitched amongst the tonal flows of the narrative.

Crimble Eve film noir, Gallic style. Splendid. 9/10

On a Christmas night, all doesn't seem to be calm and bright.An ex-convict ,Robert Herbin,(Robert Hossein) meets a beautiful Italian married woman Marthe Drévet ,who has got a lot of things to hide and it's the beginning of a film noir,with a lot of suspense and unexpected twists ,unfairly ignored nowadays.

The screenwriter was adapted from a Frederic Dard 's novel,famous in France for his "San Antonio " series -not for every taste-,but who also wrote murder mysteries as compelling as these of Boileau-Narcejac (les diaboliques,Vertigo)Robert Hossein had already adapted his "toi le venin" for the screen,and it seems that he is ,much more than Marcel Bluwal,essentially a TV director,the main auteur of the film.

The action takes place in an old house ,the first floor of which is a big workshop.A dark , threatening house,where a service elevator(monte-charge)leads to the flat.Marthe takes Robert to her home for a drink;he puts a small bird he bought on the Xmas tree,and they go for a stroll in the streets;when they come back,there's a dead body in the room(the hubby) and most extraordinary thing,the bird has disappeared.And that's only the beginning!The scenes outside the house show Clouzot's and Duvivier's influence,but also Dard's misanthropy:all through the streets,on that Xmas night,there's nothing really divine:except from the very beginning,when a gendarme buys a plane for his child,all we see is people arguing or fighting.And it's during the midnight mass,when a singer breaks into "minuit chrétiens" (o holy night),that the two heroes meet a despicable bourgeois(Maurice Biraud) puffed up with smugness and vulgarity.

A lot of surprises are in store for the audience and I wonder why they've never thought of a remake:the screenplay is strong enough to stand the test of time.The performances (Hossein,Biraud and Léa Massari) are first-rate.

This is a film which I had not even heard of before a kind fellow IMDb user sent me a copy. It fits under the neo-noir bracket; more specifically it's an example of French noir, of which there seemed to be quite a few released in the 1960's. Its story follows an ex-convict who has just been released from prison; he has a chance encounter with a married Italian woman who invites him back to her flat. Later they go back out drinking but when they return they discover the body of the woman's husband in the apartment, murdered. In typical noir fashion, there are a few surprises yet around the corner.

This moody Gallic thriller takes place over the course of one winter night in Paris. Christmas festivities form a backdrop to events but there is little holiday cheer to be found in the story, although a key clue to the mysterious goings on ties in with a seemingly irrelevant Christmas item. That, along with the significant role played by the elevator that services the warehouse like apartment building where most of the key action takes place, forms the bones of the clever narrative. There is a nice gloomy atmosphere to this one which helps create an effective mood, while the twist in the story really is quite unusual and smart. It ensures that this one dovetails into a very satisfying ending and makes you want to watch the movie again to see it unfold with the benefit of foreknowledge.

"Le Monte-Charge" is a hell of hidden treasure in french film noir. And it's the best opus in the Frederic Dard-Robert Hossein cooperation. How can such a nugget be forgotten for so long time? At last, it's available on DVD and blue-ray. Maybe french films noirs need a complete encyclopedia so we can discover such gems.

"Le Monte-Charge" offers us a real noir crime drama with a diabolical machination. Without telling the story (already told by the other reviewers), the result is an amazing and insane atmosphere, sharply photographed by not so unknown André Bac ("Le Jour Se Lève") with dazzling views by night. A lot of very strong surprises all through the movie. I was stuck in front of this mirage of despair.

The main city where the movie is shot is Asnières (next to the station street with the cinema Alcazar).

If you love old fine french noir movies with old settings (french restaurants, cars, stores... ), jump on it and enjoy, you will place your disc next to "Les Diaboliques" by Clouzot.