SILVER

ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS [ASCENSEUR POUR L'ÉCHAFAUD]
Louis Malle bridges classic noir and the French New Wave with peerless style. An adulterous couple's slick plot to murder the woman's husband collides with a pair of bungling teens acting out their nihilistic crime-movie fantasies. Jeanne Moreau is immortalized as she takes the greatest nocturnal stroll in cinema history as Miles Davis' improvised score caresses her like a night breeze. Meanwhile, the attempts of Julien Tavernier (Maurice Ronet) to escape a stalled elevator become a mesmerizing visual poem of entrapment. French noir doesn't come any cooler than this. (Note courtesy of Noir City.) DIR/SCR Louis Malle; SCR Roger Nimier; PROD Jean Thuillier. France, 1958, b&w, 91 min. In French with English subtitles. NOT RATED

Followed by:

STRONGROOM
An obscure noir that eschews the casting of well-known actors, STRONGROOM exploits a unique premise: a trio of crooks knocks over a suburban London bank at Saturday closing, leaving the manager and his secretary locked in the vault. Dissention roils the gang, however, when they realize that Monday is the Easter holiday, and the captives will suffocate before being discovered. Not wanting to add murder to their résumés, the crooks must break back into the bank while still evading capture. STRONGROOM was all but forgotten — until this Noir City revival! (Note adapted from Noir City.) DIR Vernon Sewell; SCR Richard Harris, Max Marquis; PROD Guido Coen. UK, 1962, b&w, 80 min. NOT RATED