I have seen it for the second time,and I noticed some plot holes.Don't get me wrong,I think this is a great movies,but s
-
Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Elevator to the Gallows
bigscreen2 — 17 years ago(May 05, 2008 02:38 AM)
I have seen it for the second time,and I noticed some plot holes.Don't get me wrong,I think this is a great movies,but still there are some questions.
They are not strictly plot holes,but Madame Carala acts unaturally.They suppose have organised the perfect crime,but she is wandering around asking for Tavernier whom she is supposed have met only twice.Ofcourse,she doesn'tknow what happened,but she doesn't bother to call home to see if her husband returned home.And then at the police,she says that her husband is at Switzerland,something could be easily checked even if he was still alive !
And something else : I didn't get it right,but I think at the end of the movie,the policeman says to Madame Carala,that Tavernier will do less time at prison than her.Am I missing something ? Is there a different law in France at that time ? To me they are facing exactly the same penalnty-at least if it that happened at my country -
LiefWoods — 17 years ago(August 02, 2008 07:04 PM)
I was totally with this movie until the end. My problem: Who took the pictures in the camera?! Weren't they having a secret affair? Did they hire a private photographer to photograph themselves galavanting in the forest. That was so stupid. It completely ruined the whole movie for me. Such a lame contrivance.
-
clivey6 — 17 years ago(August 07, 2008 04:42 AM)
I more or less agree. Terrific film and these holes didn't mar my enjoyment.
- A bit obvious that the killer has left the rope dangling, can't really believe he'd forget something like that even with the phone ringing, unless he'd been thrown by events, and he looked pretty cool about it.
- Er, why did they have to kill the husband anyway? The male lead didn't seem penniless. Wouldn't divorce have sufficed? I may have missed something here.
- Agree about the sentences imposed at the end. Is it really a crime of passion anyhow? Seemed pretty calculated. How come the teenagers would swing but the adults wouldn't? Does adultery give killers the seal of approval in France ha ha
-
AsaNisiMasa_63 — 17 years ago(August 11, 2008 09:03 PM)
<1) A bit obvious that the killer has left the rope dangling, can't really believe he'd forget something like that even with the phone ringing, unless he'd been thrown by events, and he looked pretty cool about it.
Totally agree. Especially since he's an ex-war hero/secret agent. Covering his tracks would have been the first thing for him to do.
<2) Er, why did they have to kill the husband anyway? The male lead didn't seem penniless. Wouldn't divorce have sufficed? I may have missed something here.
It's never mentioned, but its implied several times that he is a powerful man who works above the law. If he was divorced and found out his wife was with Julien, then he might have them both killed. Killing him would be a better way since(before they found the photos) the police thought it was suicide. People like him might also have powerful enemies and the police could assume it was the latter.
Great movie! -
PoppyTransfusion — 13 years ago(September 11, 2012 07:10 AM)
Given that Tavernier left his car running with his coat and a gun in plain sight whilst he dashed back to retrieve the rope, I think it's safe to say that careful though he is, he makes mistakes. Also it adds to the character complexity as one could postulate this behaviour as evidence of the effects of committing murder.
Mrs Carala was going to hang. Although she went on about 10 years, 20 years, significantly, she made reference to sleeping and not worrying about growing old.
Why problem make? When you no problem have, you don't want to make -
MsELLERYqueen2 — 11 years ago(February 15, 2015 11:58 AM)
Point # 2 - they had no choice but to do away with a powerful man like that husband. He would have sought revenge big-time.
Point # 3 - the sentences mentioned at the end weren't official. None of them had actually been sentenced for any crime yet.
~~
JimHutton (1934-79) and ElleryQueen -
ChorusGirl — 15 years ago(February 10, 2011 06:40 AM)
I didnt catch that about the pictures in the camera. You are so right!
As far as the incredibly foolhardy things these characters do, I chalk that up to being a French New Wave requirement, where there is rarely any conventional logic, and characters can be relied upon to make really, really stupid life decisions (BREATHLESS, SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER, 400 BLOWS, PIERRE LE FOU, etc etc). -
MsELLERYqueen2 — 11 years ago(February 15, 2015 11:56 AM)
Good point about the pictures. They might have asked some strangers to take the pics when they were at some park (probably in a different part of the city where they wouldn't be recognized). If the hubby was away on a long convention, then the wife and boyfriend could have even gone together to some small town for a holiday (where no one would know them) and maybe they could have met people (using fake names) who would have taken those pics.
The affair wasn't all that secret. Some of the people the wife met the night she was searching for her sweetheart seemed to know already that she was a very good friend of Tavernier's.
~~
JimHutton (1934-79) and ElleryQueen -
mdonln — 10 years ago(July 17, 2015 10:23 PM)
LiefWoods says > Who took the pictures in the camera?!
I don't think this is as big a plot hole as you seem to think. The drunk guy, Christian, who ends up in jail with Florence said they had all gone out together one night. If they went out with him, it's within reason they might have also gone out with other people. Any of those people or a complete stranger could have taken the pictures.
Weren't they having a secret affair?
Yes, their relationship was secret but mostly from her husband and the people in their everyday lives. The fact she knew all the places to go looking for him means they had been out together and had been to those places together.
Also, that night he was supposed to pick her up after leaving work. On the phone, she refers to it as their 'usual' place. This tells me they went out publicly but limited themselves to certain parts of town.
Paris is divided into twenty districts called arrondissements; each has its own distinct 'personality'. The district Julien and Florence frequent was likely one her husband and people in her circle would never venture into so they were safe there.
Woman, man! That's the way it should be Tarzan.
[Tarzan and his mate] -
dwood-4 — 17 years ago(August 08, 2008 06:40 AM)
i wondered about that but i was always under the impression that people who plan murders get more jail time than the actual trigger man. julien pulled the trigger but she was his wife and it looks like she wanted his money. i felt they were implying that she would get more jail time than him (when she says to herself, twenty years or something).
always wondered about those picturesweren't they taken with that spy camera ? -
aj_malt — 17 years ago(October 07, 2008 03:26 PM)
To OP
One would always wonder at the demands made of the viewer by the borderline ridiculous premise. I mean, suspension of disbelief is one thing, but in this film, suspension of disbelief at the suspension(quite literally) is impossible. Julien in the car spots the rope he just forgot very easily. There it is, hanging merrily, waiting to be rescued. And yet, when he climbs up the same rope to commit a murder, the entire Paris on the road down below sleeps, or ignores him completely, so much so that he would have felt compensated for the ignorance, by the picture of him that appears on the frontpage, on the ensuing day.
The author of the above was once THE DIRECTION -
LudwA — 17 years ago(March 19, 2009 03:15 AM)
good points all around here.
what struck me as weird, is when the police officers gives a speech at the end he says Tavernier will get 10 years, and he'll do 5, but YOU (Moreau, the accomplice) won't get away so easy. WTF is that!?!? There's no way she deserves a higher sentence than her husband, what kind of mysoginy is that!? -
Charlot47 — 13 years ago(March 02, 2013 08:26 AM)
Though Carala was killed by Julien alone, his lover Florence not only planned the cold-blooded murder of her husband but presumably expected to become his wealthy widow and to enjoy his riches with the murderer. While she may have thought that she would get off lightly, the policeman Cherrier thinks that the court will not be so lenient. After all, couldnt she just have got a divorce?
-
mdonln — 10 years ago(July 17, 2015 08:19 PM)
That's what's weird about this movie. There are so many plot holes, so much we have to ignore for the story to be believable, yet it still manages to be a really good movie.
Woman, man! That's the way it should be Tarzan.
[Tarzan and his mate] -
mawsis — 16 years ago(June 27, 2009 05:31 PM)
How was he supposed to get the rope down in the first place? It was on a grappling hook above the floor of the murder. If he took it down, how was he going to go back down the rope? He would have had to have taken the elevator.