Simple story, no special effects
by malwina_ielts7 on July 16, 2008
in students
When after a long, exhausting school year holidays finally come, I sometimes don’t know what to do with myself. Feeling incredibly bored one rainy afternoon, I decided to watch a film It wasn’t a modern one, with highly-developed special effects, and irritating sound in the background. It was an old, black and white French film mysteriously titled Lift to the Scaffold. I found it by accident and wasn’t really sure I would watch it whole, but just when the action started, I got captivated and watched carefully till the end.
The owner of a big company is murdered in his own office by one of his workers, who happens to have an affair with his beautiful young, wife. Unfortunately, after the murder, he gets trapped in the office’s lift, while his lover is impatiently waiting outside, thinking that something must have gone wrong. When he finally manages to get out of the lift, he is accused of a double murder – a German couple found dead far away from the city. Nothing happening in the film is a puzzle to the viewer, who knows right from scene one who killed who. But watching the police investigate the case is equally interesting.
Thank you for a cue, malwina. I just didn’t know what to do with myself, now I do, I’ll watch it again. And congratulations on the excellent choice. Can you believe that the film is 50 years old this year and still manages to thrill those who came across a rare copy of it. It’s fascinating for a variety of reasons I suppose. You seem to like the element of suspense, but from your telegraphic summary I can’t tell which thread you particularly liked.
My summary was really telegraphic and didn’t include details about two other couples taking part in the action: the German couple, and the third pair, whose adventures were, in my opinion, the most gripping.
When Julien (the murderer) gets trapped in the lift, Veronique (a young florist working next to his office) and Louis (her boyfriend) steal his super-fast car with his coat, camera and gun in it. After a crazy ride outside Paris, they meet two German tourists travelling in an even faster car. The Germans invite the youngsters to spend a night in a motel and cerebrate the race with champagne. Unfortunately, when Louis tries to leave the motel at night in the Germans’ Mercedes, the owner stops him with a gun. Louis kills him and his wife on an impulse with the gun he found in Julien’s car. That’s why the police accuse Julien of a double murder when they find his car and belongings in the motel. Meanwhile…