The album features the musical cues for the 1958 Louis Malle film Ascenseur pour l'échafaud.

Jean-Paul Rappeneau, a jazz fan and Malle's assistant at the time, suggested asking Miles Davis to create the film's soundtrack – possibly inspired by the Modern Jazz Quartet's recording for Roger Vadim's Sait-on jamais (Lit: 'Does One Ever Know', released as: No Sun in Venice), released a few months earlier in 1957.

Rappeneau introduced him to Malle, and Davis agreed to record the music after attending a private screening.

In the opinion of Romina Daniele, the musical mood and characteristics of the soundtrack immediately preceded and introduced Miles Davis's subsequent records Milestones (1958) and Kind of Blue (1959).

The original soundtrack to the film, as mixed and edited (with additional reverb) in 1958, and used for the screen, can be heard in tracks 17 to 26.