Noël Calef’s Frantic (Ascenseur pour ‘échafaud)

Noël Calef’s Frantic (original French title Ascenseur pour ’échafaud) was published in 1956. Frantic was the title given to the English translation. Louis Malle’s 1958 film adaptation (called Elevator to the Gallows in the US and Lift to the Scaffold in Britain) is better known than Calef’s original novel.

Noël Calef (1907-1968) was born Nissim Calef in Bulgaria. He spent his writing career in France, enjoying some success. Several of his novels and stories were filmed, including his short story Rodolphe et le Revolver which was the basis of the superb 1959 British thriller Tiger Bay starring Hayley Mills.

The book could perhaps with some justice be described as an inverted detective story. We start with a murder and the reader knows the identity of the victim and the identity of the killer. Inverted detective stories focus on the way in which the detective solves the murder but this novel has some other twists that make it classic noir fiction as well.

Frantic can reasonably be described as noir fiction with some added existentialist tinges.

It starts with the perfect crime. A perfect murder is quite possible but alas there is no such thing as a perfect murderer. No matter how clever a plan the murderer comes up with, when it comes to putting it into practice he or she will invariably make a mistake. In this case the plan comes undone partly due to such a mistake. The murderer knows that all traces of the crime have to be removed but leaves one trace behind due to forgetfulness under stress. The plan also goes awry partly through bad luck. It was that damned elevator. If the power to the elevator hadn’t been shut off when the janitor locked up the building for the night all would have been well.

There are several other crimes in this book that are from perfect. A murderer who thinks he’s a superior man but turns out to be an amateur and a bungler. And a man who thinks he has the answer to his marital problems but doesn’t consider the possibility that his wife has already figured out what he’s up to.

There are as many doomed characters as any noir fiction fan could ask for. There’s Julien Courvois, the crooked businessman who decides to take a drastic step to get himself out of a jam but makes a mess of his plans. There’s Fred. He’s a kind of proto-beatnik. He thinks he’s a genius who is going to show the hated bourgeoisie a thing or two but he’s a loser who blames society for his own inadequacies. And there’s Pedro, the Brazilian whose wife has become an inconvenience. None of these men could be described as tragic. They’re responsible for all their own troubles. And none of them could be described as sympathetic.

Each of the men has a woman and the women are perhaps less responsible for the mess their lives have become. There’s Julien’s wife Geneviève, Fred’s girlfriend Theresa and Pedro’s French wife Germaine. Geneviève and Theresa are guilty of very poor judgment when it comes to choosing men. They don’t really deserve to be destroyed for that reason. Maybe the women won’t be destroyed by their men seem hopelessly doomed.

So these are characters doomed by a combination of their own inherent character flaws and the inexorable workings of fate.

The plot is full of nasty little pieces of misfortune. Pedro picked the wrong hotel. Fred picked the wrong car to steal. Julien left it just a few minutes too late to go back to his offie to remove the piece of evidence he’s overlooked earlier. A few minutes earlier and he could have escaped scot-free.

It’s an intricate plot and it’s extremely well executed. The major twist (which I’m certainly not going to reveal) has been used before but in this case it’s done very neatly and very nastily.

If the novel has a weakness it’s the fact that it’s very difficult to care what happens to these people. Even the victim characters are not sympathetic. Theresa isn’t a bad person but she’s such a fool that the reader is likely to lose patience with her. As far as most of these people are concerned the reader is likely to feel that they’re getting what was coming to them.

On the plus side Frantic has a great deal of noirness, there’s fine suspense, a powerful sense of impending doom and the plot is a good one. Noir and mystery fans should both enjoy this one. Highly recommended.

Frantic has been reprinted in paperback by Stark House in their excellent Black Gat Books imprint.