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I'm going on a 60 year old memory here, so bear with me! This was the B film that was the supporting feature in the UK next to Norman Wisdom's "The Square Peg", which is the only reason I happened to see it.

For a B movie to stick in your mind for 60 years, there has to have been something special about it. The plot is simple enough - the rat eliminator borrows an old, broken loaf pan to mix up his cyanide bait in a bakery, goes out to lunch planning to clean up his work tools when he gets back, and is involved in an accident that puts him in the hospital. In his absence, the baker runs out of loaf pans, and uses the cyanide laced broken pan. The rat catcher regains consciousness in the hospital, and goes into panic mode about the poisoned pan. The rest of the movie follows the attempts of the authorities to track down the poisoned loaf of bread, identifiable because the broken loaf tin makes it one of a handful of an unusual shape.

There are a number of candidates for the potential victim, and the suspense builds as we follow the purchasers of each deformed loaf to discover which one contains the fatal mixture.

The final dénoument is completely unexpected.

Too many dramatic movies rely on the scary music, the constantly repeated hidden menace, the shadowy glimpses of the unidentifiable villain to maintain the suspense. "Devil's Bait" carries you from fear to fear only because the scenario is so real. It could happen to you.

Why only 8 out of 10? Because I haven't seen it again since 1959 to know if it still has the same train-wreck power to simultaneously attract and repel.

We stumbled on this by accident - a program we were watching on France 3 rolled over into an episode, and we kept on watching.

Like Columbo, each episode stands alone, though there are certain recurring characters who provide a backdrop to the investigative action. Unlike Columbo, Simon Magellan has a home life, and in general this provides the light comic relief that offsets the drama of the murder investigation.

The relations and plot twists between the various possible suspects in each murder are as tortuous as anything Agatha Christie or Erle Stanley Gardner ever dreamed up, and the frenetic pace of unravelling the tangled web in the span of a 90 minute episode keeps the viewer constantly on the edge of the seat.

The characters are for the most part highly believable, and even the bit parts and extras do a sterling job of adding credibility, especially when some of the plot propositions come across as somewhat lame. In this context, I must make mention of one young actress, Florence Coste, who played a strong supporting role in the May 2018 episode "Un Amour De Jeunesse" ("Young Love"). The ability to cry really convincingly on camera is rare. The ability to act drunk believably is almost non-existent. Ms Coste handles both with such perfect understatement that I was quite awestruck.

If I had to single out one area where the series falls short, it is in the camera work and final editing. There are jumps in the picture, badly angled shots, and a heavy reliance on a series of canned aerial views of the town to indicate that Simon Magellan is moving from place to place. But this is not an art film, it is a mystery series, and we are content to forgive the poor post-productoin for the sake of some excellent acting and fun plot.

It isn't easy to find episodes to watch. France 3 runs them from time to time in batches on successive weekends of a few weeks, but not in episode sequence, and with long breaks between. MHz Choice has the first 8 episodes available with English subtitles that are too big and too high on the screen, and therefore interfere a lot with the action. It would be nice if the copyright owners would put the existing 32 episodes on a DVD boxed set and make them available on-line.

This week I fell in love all over again, like a teenager. Rose Weissman stole my heart.

Few people even know who Rose Weissman is. Unless you've seen The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, you won't have encountered Miriam Maisel's mother, Rose. It took me a bit of introspection to figure out why I am so drawn to this character. Then I realised that she is my wife. She's the woman I wanted my daughters to grow up into. She is the girl I wanted my son to marry.

Rose Weissman is intelligent, witty, bitingly sarcastic at times, kind, generous and thoughtful. She is devoted to her home and those she shares it with. She is ferociously protective of her offspring. She loves her shiksah daughter-in-law unconditionally. She is dedicated to her marriage and her temple. She worries for her children, that they may face heartbreak and disappointment. She worries for her husband that he may lose the respect of his colleagues, or of the members of their Shul.

Her daughter Miriam said of her "My mother wants everything to be perfect. No, she wants everything to appear to be perfect." But Miriam is wrong. Rose knows that perfection is an unattainable ideal, but she nevertheless sees perfection as something to strive for at all times. She is elegant and sophisticated, running a spotless urban middle class home with skill and diplomacy. She is a strong woman. She bore and raised two children through the great depression and the nightmare years of WWII. She has learned to hide her hurts, her heartaches, her disappointments, and maintain that appearance of perfection that her daughter despises. And if on occasion she turns in secret to a glass of wine or a quack fortune teller, it is to quell her own insecurities, not to manipulate those around her.

Rose Weissman is the 1950s middle aged middle class urban housewife who epitomizes everything the feminists abhor. And she is drop-dead gorgeous.