Maigret tend un piège

Alongside Molinaro's "La Mort de Belle", the best adaptation of a Simenon story for the big screen.

Helmer Delannoy proves a past master at creating a stifling atmosphere ( night scenes, a hot stormy weather, a heady melody pervading the story ), managing to make the tension rise and swell regularly until it explodes in a triple climax ( Maurice's interrogation, the confrontation of Maurice's wife and mother, the final attempt to murder Mauricette ). So, when the rain finally starts falling in the final seconds of the movie, it does as much good to bulky, weary Gabin as it does to the tense viewer.

Of course, the film benefits from a great interpretation : Jean Gabin gives life to his determined-shrewd-exhausted "commissaire" while Jean Desailly shines as the poor but dangerous Maurice whose boyhood has been prolonged by the misguided love of his mother ( Lucienne Bogaërt, perfect ). And Annie Girardot plays subtly and with welcome restraint the loving wife of a monster.

Sure, Misraki's music and song are haunting and the camera-work is sleek, but what actually makes this film a major work is that the authors( R.M.Arlaud, Delannoy and Audiard ) are true to the spirit of Simenon : disillusioned with human nature but sympathetic with those who are its victims, however monstrous they may appear to society.

This year was devoted to deepening my appreciation of Simenon's works; this is the best film version of his novels. From the first scene, with a nervous Insp. Lagrume trying to keep abreast of a violent confrontation in the Place des Vosges--the fourth killing by a sadistic serial killer--to the ending with Lagrume again trying to curry favour with an exasperated Maigret, this film held me spellbound. The acting is superb: Gabin has his best role since the glory days with Renoir in the 30's, Desailly is extraordinary as the wretched Maurin, pulled by mother and wife both and hating it, Annie Girardot is wonderfully sensual and determined as the young wife, and Lucienne Bogaert plays the mother from Hell with the greatest skill. The hatred the two women have for each other is palpable. All the supporting players turn in fine work, especially Gerard Sety as Jojo the gigolo who manages to stir the emotions of Yvonne Maurin, for a while at least.

It seems there is no general Region 1 release for this film; that's a real shame. I found a cheap knockoff without special features in a cutout bin in Montreal. Please let's have a proper reissue.

I delight in a good detective story and have seen numerous Film & TV versions of the same stories. In this case we're speaking of cases, which are for me; fantastic versions of Maigret. Gabin plays the character in such a vibrantly nuanced manner, as that of a man who is measured, but very engaged in walking the streets and getting into the nitty gritty of each case. The relationship with his wife has less to do with smiles and more to do with a woman who bursts any notional bubble he's caught in, with unpretentious aplomb. And the cases themselves are so much more detailed, complex and true to Simenon's originals than some other adaptations; especially shorter length episodes for TV. Of course, Simenon himself preferred Rupert Davies portrayal over the dozen or so other attempts. But for me this was thoroughly enjoyable!

Jean Gabin plays Inspector Maigret here in a role that I find him quite matched to. I always figured him as fitting kindly roles after watching him play gangsters so often (the French have had an ambivalent, occasionally adulatory disposition towards gangsters judging from their domestic movie output, which perhaps makes these roles for Gabin less of a clang for them - perhaps this is similar to our English views of Robin Hood and Dick Turpin!).

I came to this movie via an interest in director Jean Delannoy. Even though it appears to be a very commercial project he's helming on behalf of a studio, rather than a more obviously auteur-driven piece such as "L'Eternel Retour", there are perhaps significant parallels with his other work. Delannoy, I believe, was preoccupied with matters Oedipal, definitely by family conflict of the dysfunctional variety, and you can see this, for example, in "La Symphonie Pastorale", where a father and son both fall in love with the same woman, also in "L'Eternel Retour" with the damaged Achille, spoiled by his parents, and in "Macao, enfer de jeu", where Ying Tchaï's entire life is concealed from the daughter he dotes on.

Whilst Maigret Sets a Trap is about, "la chasse au tigre", or a tiger hunt, with the Marais killer being the tiger, there's also a story of inter-generational abuse that's powerful and fascinating. I felt I learnt several lessons whilst watching the movie, particularly about the power of jealousy to provoke extravagant paranoias (under which lie quite delicate realities) and how the truth is often more human than you think, also about temperance (Maigret makes a joke about being unable to obtain attractive partners), and appearances. I'm fascinated about private versus public realities, ever since seeing Paul Klee's beautiful series of "Der Komiker" ("The Comedian") etchings as a teenager. These show men wearing masks that look like faces, and you can see the real, quite different, faces behind. In this movie there's a huge divide between persona and the repressed and crippled personalities behind them.

Today's audiences may find that Jean Desailly (Marcel Maurin) overacts, but I think Delannoy is far cleverer than is often given credit for, and provides his own commentary on the style of acting in the movie, when Maigret is at pains to instruct a con on how to act to the press.

I think I fell in love with this movie, because I was never really sure where it was going, and there's some dirty thoughts to be had if you get inside the paranoia. There's also not many movies where you have such a human detective, who even conducts a late night interview with his undone belt surrounding a bulging belly. The ending is quite iconic in its own way, and rounded off a charming watch.

It's a hot summer in Paris while a mysterious killer is plaguing the serene joie de vivre of Montmartre district making victims out of women who have in common (besides the misfortune of being at the wrong place at the wrong moment of the night) to be young and plump brunettes. The film opens with a murder that recalls the beginning of the mother of all psychological thrillers: "M" and there's more that justifies the comparison.

Jean Delannoy's "Maigret Sets a Trap" is a fine example of a police procedural film that gets three things right: first, it perfectly conveys the atmosphere of an impending danger whose motivations -we rapidly suspect- are rooted in the mire of human psyche, secondly, the villain isn't just an antagonist but the subject of a character study that unveils the sleaziest and most sordid expressions of hubris and finally, the film lies on the broad shoulders of a great and iconic protagonist in the person of Jules Maigret, the 'French' Sherlock Holmes, created by Belgian writer George Simenon.

A few words about Maigret: the Chief Inspector is a robust-looking, well-built man with a reassuring physique and a sort of detached attitude that allows him to be more perceptive of little details surrounding him, he's a man who takes his time, follows his instinct, and tries to identify hints about the assassin's profile as insistently as if they were tangible evidence. He's a man who can nonchalantly wonders across a busy street to test the waters and gather clues from the mere sight of playful kids or noisy vendors. He's not alone in this job, he has various subordinates (one is played by Lino Venture) whose mission can consist of walking in the screen and fishing potential suspects out of shoals of onlookers.

I make his approach methodical but it isn't, Maigret built enough experience not to let himself distracted by bureaucracy, he can enter a house without a warrant considering it's up to the suspect to know the rules. He handles information as if they're no big deal, encouraging the suspect to go on without arousing any suspicion on his side, "may I see your wardrobe?" "did you have a key?" innocent questions whose purpose is to grab facts that can eventually be contradicted by subtle cross-examinations. There's something fascinating in the way Maigret handles the investigation, even when we suspect he's not fooled by the criminal's identity, let alone his psychological profile, he still acts with the potential killer as a simple civil servant concerned by red tape issues.

There's no doubt in my mind that Gabin was born to play Maigret, the actor, in the second part of his career, had the quiet strength of the experienced man, who knows when to speak, when to listen and when to let his authoritarian voice erupt in a few occasions. Gabin was perfect to play characters who didn't need to rise their voice to obtain what they wanted and knew when to use it to finally get the confession, a man in total control of the situation even when it could get out of control. Gabin trusts his competence and knows that his instinct would only half fool him and half the way to the killer goes through the fatal weakness he'll be able to spot. He can tell from an anonymous letter that there's a big ego behind the assassin, one that would bite on the right bait.

Basically, the film is composed of three acts: Maigret sets the trap that fulfills its purpose in extremis, then there's the investigation where Maigret asks questions between Montmartre and Les Rosiers and the film's climax consists of interrogation scenes that are as riveting and absorbing as the classic "Garde à Vue" by Claude Miller: Maigret in his office, Maigret outside and Maigret in the interrogation room. And at that point of the review I must mention that, in her earliest roles, Annie Girardot delivers a great subdued performance as a bourgeois woman bored by her effeminate husband Jean Desailly, equally superb as the Mama's boy who's been so pampered by her mother he developed a strong aversion to the female persuasion. Both actors would be nominated for the BAFTA Awards.

There's a great study of French manhood in that early urban setting of the 50s that might echo the post-war atmosphere film noir. France was a country that was both defeated at the end of the war and yet had its honor saved by the great De Gaulle, a country whose citizens accepted the patronizing and infantilizing tone of Pétain telling them to surrender to Germany for their own good and yet where a handful of fighters decided to maintain the fight. It's one of France's tragic ironies to have invented the world 'Resistance' and be forever associated with 'surrendering'. In that confrontation between Maigret and the suspect, there's the collision of these two sides of French manhood, the old-school and principled citizen and the wimp who accepts defeat and yet doesn't have the guts to assume it. This is why you can't totally disconnect the film from a certain view of France and the way social classes can condition ethical choices, that the killer is highly educated says a lot about a certain defiance toward the upper class man.

There's more in "Maigret" than a formulaic police movie: behind the investigation, there's a study on mores of its time, it's a rather disenchanting and heavy-loaded portrait of a moral decadence and the way men have lost their way, and when the film ends with that sudden rain, we feel as relieved as Maigret who chooses to walk alone on the street as if he felt even the police couldn't triumph over all the filth and evil that eat away the people and maybe a good rain will watch some of it.

The first opus of the "Maigret" saga is a gem of French popular cinema... with an assumed populist undertone.