Maigret

I have just finished the first five episodes from the new Network Video release. Since I am an American and have never seen these episodes on-air, my opinion may differ from theirs.

As this new DVD format is the one most likely to be encountered by a modern viewer, I will address that directly. The video quality of the episodes is comparable to perhaps the earliest "I Love Lucy" episodes you may have seen, or very early "Super Man" shows. Unlike them, the exterior shots are fine and they seem to have actually taken Rupert across the Channel to film them (unlike Roger Moore in "The Saint"). But the interiors are a different story. There were sometimes issues with the video transfer process and it shows in the interiors (especially Episode 1). The interior sets look very much like something put together week by week. The standing sets for his office are a bit more detailed. The sound is like a stage production recorded. Even for 1960 some of the acting is very stage-like, with unrealistic speech and exaggerated mannerisms.

So if you can get past the late 50's production quality Rupert Davies and Ewen Solon are fine and the stories seem as effective to me as modern Maigret renditions of them (I've never read the books). Most of the supporting actors are good enough.

All 52 episodes are available, so there's quite a lot to enjoy if this is your cup of tea. But I must warn you that the production values are not even vaguely comparable to a show like 1958's "Peter Gunn", much less more modern versions.

I have waited over 50 years for what I believed to be the definitive Maigret only to be very disappointed.

Not all is bad. Over 52 episodes there is of course some variation in quality. Generally, the standard of acting, direction, and scripting improves as the series progreses but there is plenty of room for it to do so. Line fluffs, bumping into scenery, claustrophobic sets, ham acting, and aimless direction were all common occurrences in taped studio drama of the 60s but here the depths are really plumbed, especially in the earlier episodes and given the supposed prestige nature of the project this really is not excusable in the degree exhibited.

Davies does a largely excellent job in the central character, being everything he should be as a star detective and as Maigret in particular: relaxed, likeable, thoughtful, avuncular. But too often he has to carry things when surrounded by seeming amateurs (many of whom had been on the professional stage for 30 years or more but patently had no clue as to how to act on TV) and wading through a leaden script in a grim, depressing set.

Of the three regular supporting roles, Ewen Solon as Lucas is the only one to offer a standard of performance that actually does support Davies; Helen Shingler as Madam Maigret and Neville Jason as Lapointe are as dull and monochrome as the sets.

All these deficiencies might have been offset had the stories been better but here we come to the root of the problem which is Simenon. I can't claim to have read all the stories but the ones I have read are all very similar and the famed depiction of low life psychoanalyzed by the thoughtful Maigret palls quite quickly. It seems that the BBC were so in thrall to Simenon that they dared not knock his limited creations into a shape suitable for television and so were stuck with thin gruel in the plot department and tried to make up for it by portraying the atmosphere of the stories - a near impossible task even with today's technology but suicidally ambitious for 1961.

Why then was it so popular? Because: the reputation of the author and character was such that people wanted to believe that the TV version was better than it really was; despite the dramatic failings around him, Davies did make an attractive central figure; the idea of a who dunnit set in Paris was exotic to millions of people who had never been abroad; and there was little choice on TV at the time.

The simple fact is that the Michael Gambon version is infinitely better; it's a tragedy that he made so few episodes.

Nowadays TV drama is mostly the same as cinema drama, just with a smaller budget, and apart from news and current affairs, TV stations just play pre-recorded items. How different it was when this series was made. I'm not sure if the programmes went out live, but even if they didn't, they were made "as if" live, since editing early video tape was extremely difficult and expensive. So what you get with these shows is similar to what you get when you go to a live theatre performance: a company of actors working together in real time to present a story. Fabulous! And, yes, there are going to be the odd little errors, just as in the theatre. The only difference from live theatre is that, in this series, we have the addition of wonderfully evocative filmed sequences made in Paris in an era when it looked extremely Parisian. It's exciting. I don't mind at all about the small and rather cheap sets.

Well, that's according to my memories, anyway. I was an avid Simenon reader at the time - I think I've read nearly every Maigret story - and I totally loved this series. Simenon's Maigret stories are very difficult for directors and actors to adequately capture because he builds up an atmosphere using all the senses, not just the visual and aural. He also develops the atmosphere gradually - Maigret's or someone else' health, the drinks and food he consumes, Maigret's ponderings on the crime or the criminal, the weather. That atmosphere is also tied in with the specific psychological aspects of each case - Simenon was fairly obsessed with exploring the psychodynamics of pathological behaviour, and very much in the style of psychoanalytic descriptions and explanations. I don't recall seeing any other adaptation of the Maigret novels that came as close as this series. I wish it were available.

I believe the Michael Gambon Maigret was shot in Budapest because Paris didn't look like Paris any more! There are no such problems here. This is the Paris of the books, and Rupert Davies is Maigret exactly as Simenon conceived him. It was this authenticity that made me buy it as soon as it came out.

Thus the scenery and atmosphere are perfect. The stories, inevitably, are variable, but I'd call them good to excellent. The acting is solid rather than anything better - clearly there were no funds for retakes and there is usually a fluffed line or two in every episode.

The weak spot is the technical quality. Episode One is an outlier, in that it is so poor it is difficult to watch. From Episode Two it is very much better, but still not great. But then, would it have been any better for the TV viewer of the time, watching a 405 line transmission on an 18 inch set?

Anyway I'm delighted to have bought this wonderful time capsule.