Elevator to the Gallows

Co-presented by TUCSON JAZZ FESTIVAL, taking place January 16-24, 2026!

Celebrate the centennial of MILES DAVIS (born May 26, 1926) with a big screen presentation of the gorgeous 1958 French New Wave crime thriller ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS, featuring the legendary musician’s mind-blowing, now-iconic improvised score, considered to be the first real jazz score for a motion picture!

“ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS married a new kind of jazz to a new kind of cinema, and created something altogether sublime.” – Tina Hassannia, Village Voice

For his feature debut, twenty-four-year-old director Louis Malle brought together a mesmerizing performance by the glamorous Jeanne Moreau, evocative cinematography by Henri Decaë, and a now legendary jazz score by Miles Davis – improvised over the course of a single, all-night session, in a rented Parisian studio, by Davis and his accompanying musicians, including French pianist René Urtreger and American drummer Kenny Clarke. Taking place over the course of one restless Paris night, Malle’s richly atmospheric crime thriller stars Moreau and Maurice Ronet as lovers whose plan to murder her husband (his boss) goes awry, setting off a chain of events that seals their fate. A career touchstone for its director and female star, Elevator to the Gallows was an astonishing beginning to Malle’s eclectic body of work, and it established Moreau as one of the most captivating actors ever to grace the screen. (Dir. by Louis Malle, 1958, France, in French with English subtitles, 92 mins., Not Rated)