By Cliff Bellamy

cbellamy@heraldsun.com; 419-6744

In director Louis Malle’s “Elevator to the Gallows” (“Ascenseur pour l’Echafaud”), Florence, played by actress Jeanne Moreau, walks down a street in Paris at nighttime, searching longingly for her lover Julien (played by Maurice Ronet), who, unknown to her is trapped in an elevator after killing her husband. She believes Julien has abandoned her. The nighttime scenes are shot in black and white, and a slow, improvised soundtrack by trumpeter Miles Davis underscores the brooding mood of the scene.

In Carol Reed’s “The Third Man,” pulp writer Holly Martins (played by Joseph Cotten) and Harry Lime (played by Orson Welles) take a ride aboard a Ferris wheel. The camera gives the viewer sweeping aerial shots of an amusement park in post-World War II Vienna, but the focus here is the verbal sparring between Martins and Lime, whose “cuckoo clock” speech is a cynical moral justification the black marketeering from which he profits.

Jean-Jacques Beineix’s film “Diva” contains a riveting chase scene through the subways of Paris.

Those are just three of many memorable scenes and shots from four films that The Carolina Theatre will screen beginning today during its Classic Crime Noir Film Series — “The Third Man,” “Elevator to The Gallows,” Henri-Georges Clouzot’s “Diabolique” and “Diva.”

All films in this series will be shown on 35mm prints, their original format.

“Film noir” — literally “black film” in French — is a film historians’ term that refers to stylish crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. It usually designates films from the early 1940s to the early 1960s, usually shot in a low-key black-and-white visual style.

Other examples of this style are the classic films “Double Indemnity,” “Laura,” Orson Welles’ own “Touch of Evil,” “The Maltese Falcon” and “Call Northside 777.”

Of the films in the Carolina Theatre series, three are shot in black and white. “Diva,” from 1981, is shot in color.

Films now customarily described as noir have been made around the world. From the 1960s onward, many pictures have been released that share attributes with film noirs. Such latter-day works in a noir mode such as “Diva” are often referred to as neo-noirs.

Here are some synopses of each film, courtesy of The Carolina Theatre:



Carol Reed’s “The Third Man” (UK, 1949, NR, 93 min).

Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten), a writer of pulp Westerns and one of life’s congenital third-raters, arrives in post-World War II Vienna only to learn that his old pal Harry Lime (played by Orson Welles), the guy who sent him his plane ticket, is being buried. Everybody, from a cynical British cop named Calloway (Trevor Howard) to Harry’s girlfriend (Alida Valli) and his business associates, feels that Holly should get on another plane and go home. He doesn’t. Things come to light. Other deaths follow.

Henri-Georges Clouzot’s “Diabolique” (France, 1955, NR, 116 min).

Vera Clouzot plays the sickly wife of a callous headmaster of a provincial boarding school going to seed and the commanding Simone Signoret is the headmaster’s mistreated mistress. Together they plot and carry out his murder, a brutal drowning that director Clouzot documents in chilly detail, but the corpse disappears, and a nosy detective starts sniffing around the grounds as threatening notes taunt the women. In French with English subtitles.

Louis Malle’s “Elevator to the Gallows” (France, 1957. PG, 88 min).

In this, his debut feature film, director Louis Malle captures the hidden beauty of Jeanne Moreau, the brilliant camerawork of Henri Decaë, and the musical force of Miles Davis in a tightly constructed film noir experience that launched his and Moreau’s career. After killing his lover’s husband, Julien (Maurice Ronet) gets trapped in an elevator, forcing him to miss his rendezvous with Florence (Moreau) and allowing his car to be stolen by a joy-riding young couple. From there, the movie splits into three directions: Julien’s efforts to escape; Florence wandering the streets, trying not to believe that Julien has abandoned her; and the car thieves, who get caught up in a murder of their own. In French with English subtitles.

Jean-Jacques Beineix’s “Diva” (France, 1981, R, 123 min)

Modern noir meets high opera in the French suspense flick “Diva.” Director Jean-Jacques Beineix launched the Cinema Du Look movement with this stylish cult thriller. A young postal carrier, Jules, has an opera obsession. He spends his small disposable income on sophisticated sound equipment and manages to bootleg a live performance of his favorite diva, Cynthia Hawkins (played by real-life opera singer Wilhelmina Wiggins Fernandez). But Jules is spotted making the recording by shady investors who want the tape. As if that weren’t enough, a second cassette, filled with enough evidence to topple an international drug and prostitution ring, makes its way into Jules’s mailbag. “Diva” has enormous loft apartments, thugs galore, gorgeous visuals, and a corker of a chase scene. In French with English subtitles.