Rendez-Vous ’26: Maigret and the Dead Lover

This year marks the ninety-fifth birthday of Georges Simenon’s famous French sleuth, Inspector Jules Maigret, who was born middle-aged and nursed on beer and apple brandy. PBS’s new, younger Maigret was pretty good, but he wasn’t really Maigret. This is the Maigret you know and probably love. Mrs. Maigret definitely loves him too, so he really doesn’t give a toss about anyone else. However, he is a professional, so he diligently works to solve his latest case, just like always, in Pascal Bonitzer’s Maigret and the Dead Lover, adapted from Simenon’s less diplomatic-sounding Maigret and the Old People, which screens again during the 2026 Rendez-Vous with French Cinema.

Even though Maigret drinks like a fish, he has a reputation for discretion, so he is assigned the potentially politically sensitive case of retired ambassador mysteriously shot multiple times by an unknown person or persons. Despite his calm, workmanlike investigative approach, Maigret’s patience will be sorely tested by his sole witness, Jacqueline “Jacotte” Larrieu, who is stone-deaf without her hearing aids. She also seems to think it is her duty to the foreign ministry to be as unforthcoming as possible.

Regardless, Maigret soon discovers the ambassador and the Princess Isi de Vuynes openly carried romantic torches for each other, despite her marriage of duty to another blue blood. Both families knew of their true love, but the not quite lovers always accepted their duties and their fate. Hence, they waited to reunite until her aristocratic husband might die, which ever so coincidentally happened a week prior.

Maigret is a tricky role to cast, because he is the polar opposite of flashy. What distinguishes the Inspector is his world-weary fatalism and his understated mordant wit. Frankly, Charles Laughton was probably too flamboyant in The Man of the Eiffel Tower, even though he was jolly entertaining to watch. Jean Gabin, Harry Baur, and Rupert Davies were all much closer to Simenon’s Maigret.

Denis Podalydes truly makes a pitch perfect Maigret, gliding through the film with a general spirit of disappointment, but never surprise. He also shares some charming chemistry with the great Irene Jacob. We instantly get all their intimate years spent together and all the bottles of wine they polished off in each other’s company.

Maigret, on PBS

A quick afternoon drink can still help fight crime. However, smoking a pipe is now frowned upon, but Chief Inspector Jules Maigret still carries his late father’s unlit pipe, as something to fiddle with to help him think. Georges Simenon’s famous slath is still an unusually cerebral copper, but this time around, he is younger and dramatically less jowly. Benjamin Wainwright joins the fraternity of Charles Laughton, Jean Gabin, Rupert Davies, and Gerard Depardieu (whose 2022 Maigret movie suddenly became far less commercial, thanks to his bro-mance with Putin), conspicuously standing out from fellow Maigrets. Regardless, the titular police inspector remains as incisive and intuitive as ever in creator-lead writer Patrick Harbinson’s six-episode Maigret, which premieres tomorrow on PBS.

As season one opens, Maigret has only just been promoted to Chief Inspector of “Le Crim” (a.k.a. the “Criminal Brigade,” much like the Major Case Squad in Law & Order: Criminal Intent), but he is already under tremendous pressure from Prosecutor Mathilde Kernavel to catch a gang of sophisticated armed robbers. Yet, much to her frustration, he is more interested in investigating the untimely death of Honore Cuendet, a refined cat burglar, whose philosophy of stealing, combining elements of elitism and egalitarianism, always amused Maigret.

Unfortunately, his seemingly questionable priorities offer an opportunity for Inspector Cavre, the rival Maigret was promoted over, to undermine his authority with the prosecutor. The rest of the Squad is solidly Team Maigret, particularly Sgt. Lucas (who is now a woman). “The Lazy Burglar” establishes Harbinson’s template, combining a classic, titular Simenon novel, with a second original, more contemporary mystery. He still spruces up the classic case, turning Maigret’s prime murder suspect into grotesquely wealthy Syrian wheeler-dealer, closely connected to the current regime.

The initial two-parter also introduces us to Madame Louise Maigret, the Chief Inspector’s beloved wife, who is also quite a bit younger than usual, but their close partnership represents the most important consistency with the previous Maigret productions fans know and love. In fact, this might be the most heartfelt, touching marriage currently depicted on television.

Maigret and Kernavel are initially on the same page at the start of “Maigret’s Failure,” investigating the disappearance of a popular influencer. Unfortunately, the Ministry insists Maigret take time out to protect Fumal, a widely despised, but powerful captain of industry. Ironically, Fumal personally requested Maigret, his old childhood nemesis, whom he now hoped to have as his new bodyguard. Instead, Maigret deduces Fumal fabricated the threats, so he cancels the protection detail. Super awkwardly, Fumal is murdered shortly after.

Although Harbinson takes a lot of liberties with Simenon’s stories, episodes three and four are good exampless of how he captures a good deal of the darkness Maigret often confronts in the novels. “Failure” also nicely leads into the next two-fer mystery, “Maigret Comes Home,” by establishing Maigret’s thorny relationship with the Countess de Saint-Fiacre, his father’s former employer. Unfortunately, the Countess becomes the victim in the two-part conclusion. Sadly, Maigret couldn’t return in time to save her, but he stays long enough crack the case, even though he is supposed to be in Paris tracking down a random psych killer.

Maigret, Season One (BBC 1960)

Inspector Jules Maigret was a rumpled, middle-aged detective and the unswervingly faithful husband of Madame Maigret, but don’t compare him to Columbo. He might be unassuming, but any dumb crook can tell the Inspector is nobody’s fool. British actor Rupert Davies made that vividly clear with his portrayal of Georges Simenon’s perennially popular detective in the early 1960s BBC series. It was a hit at the time, but many episodes have been virtually unseen since their original broadcast, due to the poor quality of the tapes. Happily, the series has been restored to viewable condition (not perfect, but never headache-inducing), with the first season releasing today on BluRay.

The pipe-chomping Maigret is known for his compassion towards victims and criminals alike. He understands only too well how human weaknesses and frailties can lead to crime, even murder. However, he never plays it fast-and-loose with the law, but he is happy to grant frequent breaks for a quick nip at the nearest bar. That is why Sgt. Lucas is so loyal to his “patron” (or boss)—and why Lapointe, the newest rookie in his department quickly shares his devotion.

Poor Lapointe will be the focus of the first episode, “Murder in Montmartre,” when a stripper he had carried a torch for turns up murdered. It is rather a conventional procedural story, but the exterior location shots document the Paris of the early 1960s that [probably] largely no longer exists.

The second installment, “Unscheduled Departure,” based on the novel Maigret Has Scruples, represents the sort of psychological gamesmanship, especially that within families and marriages, that really distinguishes the series’ best episodes. In this case, a man visits Maigret claiming his wife is trying to kill, based on highly dubious and circumstantial evidence. Maigret is next visited by the man’s wife, who claims he is going mad. With each subsequent visit, the stakes and potential for murder rises, but technically, no crime exists for Maigret to investigate.

“The Old Lady,” “Liberty Bar,” “A Man of Quality,” and “The Mistake,” are all highlights for similar reasons. They are not necessarily baffling mysteries to solve, but rather it is Maigret’s ability to perceive, empathize, and back-of-the-envelop-psychoanalyze that so compellingly drives the stories. Each episode is based on a Simenon novel, so Giles Cooper and a battery of other screenwriters always stay rather faithful to the source material.

“The Burglar’s Wife” and “The Cactus” are also particularly amusing for the way Davies embraces Maigret’s Maigret-isms. This is a surprisingly boozy show. It is also very noir, especially compared to other British series of the era. Stylistically, it bears some comparison to the iconic Peter Gunn. There is no real jazz in in the 1960 series, but Ron Grainer’s melancholy French café-style theme is distinctively catchy, almost becoming an ear-worm.

It is a shame it took so long to clean up the tapes, because if this Maigret had been available to PBS stations in the 1970s and 1980s, Davies’ Maigret would have been as familiar to viewers as Leo McKern’s Rumpole or Roy Marsden’s Adam Dalgliesh. Dozens of actors have taken their turn playing Maigret, but Davies’ take really inspires confidence. He is less flamboyant than Charles Laughton in The Man on the Eiffel Tower (seriously, who wouldn’t be?) and less hardnosed Jean Gabin in Maigret Sets a Trap, but “fatherlier” and somewhat more “lubricated.”

Maigret Sets a Trap: Jean Gabin is Jules Maigret

He is often called “Inspector,” but Jules Maigret was in fact the Commissioner of the Paris Major Crimes Division. He is a sleuth, but also a bureaucrat. Some of the least dashing actors in history have played Maigret. In 1958, Jean Gabin still exuded plenty of screen presence, but it had a jaded world-weary edge that still suited Georges Simenon’s famous detective. When a serial killer starts goading him, the Commissioner goads him right back in Jean Delannoy’s nifty film noir, Maigret Sets a Trap (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

A ripper-style killer stalking full-figured brunettes has half the Parisian force on the streets, but when they still do not reach his latest body quickly enough, he leaves a message for “Monsieur” Maigret via a police call box. That “Mr.” business really sticks in the Commissioner’s craw. Recognizing his quarry’s arrogance, Maigret recruits a small-time informer to play it up big when he is arrested for the killer’s murders. He then floods the Fourth Arrondissement with decoys drawn from the police clerical pool to draw out the real killer under the watchful eyes of their back-up units.

It very nearly works, but the killer manages to slip away. Yet, the circumstances of his escape may yet give him away. However, their biggest break comes through chance. Ordered to follow anyone suspicious watching Maigret’s media circus, Det. Lagrume tails a very out-of-place and well-to-do housewife to an assignation with a gigolo that she seems weirdly disinterested in. It is not much to go on, but when Maigret pays a visit to Madame Yvonne Maurin and her squirrely husband Jean, Marcel, he immediately starts giving the couple the Columbo treatment.

During the course of Maigret, viewers learn all about the 1950s network of police call boxes in Paris and get a tutoring in criminal psychology and the dangers of over-indulgent parenting. Like many great film noirs, it has a real vintage modern feel, as well as a bountiful helping of nocturnal Parisian ambiance. In fact, Maigret would pair up nicely with other classic French noirs, even including the granddaddy of them all, Rififi.

Gabin is a terrific Maigret pitching his flinty interpretation of the Commissioner somewhere between the larger-than-life Charles Laughton in The Man on the Eiffel Tower and the down-trodden Harry Baur in A Man’s Neck. For extra-added steeliness, Lino Ventura appears in the relatively minor role as Inspector Torrence, one of Maigret’s “Faithful Four.” Again, like the best noir crime dramas, Maigret is fully stocked with colorful supporting performances, including Olivier Hussenot as the nebbish Lagrume and Gérard Séty as the sleazy ladies’ man, Jojo Vacher.

Arguably, Delannoy’s adapted screenplay, co-written with Rodolphe-Maurice Arlaud and Michel Audiard, pushed the thematic envelope of its day with some surprisingly frank discussions of sexual hang-ups and psychological emasculation. Regardless, Maigret is a great deal of fun, but it really should be considered a procedural rather than a mystery, because we can tell the Commissioner is on the right track halfway through the second act. Very highly recommended, Maigret Sets a Trap opens this Friday (10/20) in New York, at the Metrograph.

Duvivier’s Panique

Technically, the Parisian commune of Villejuif has never been a historically Jewish enclave. However, it is the end of the tram line, which still makes it all too fitting for the ill-fated Desire Hirovitch, better known a Monsieur Hire. He is so anti-social, we might speculate he is “on the spectrum” in today’s parlance. Yet, he will be tragically shocked by his neighbors’ hostility and suspicion in Julien Duvivier’s long unseen Panique (trailer here), which opens this Friday at Film Forum in a fresh new DCP restoration.

If old Hire sounds familiar, then you might know him through Patrice Leconte’s Monsieur Hire, another adaptation of the same Georges Simenon novel. Whereas Michel Blanc was a more nebbish, bloodlessly fastidious sort in Leconte’s take, Michel Simon’s original Hire is conspicuously husky, hirsute, and you know . . . foreign-looking. Each seems to cry out to be shunned, which in their own contempt for the ignorant proletariat, a fate both Hires have probably accepted too readily.

Although Duvivier plays down the voyeuristic aspects of Simenon’s story, Hire does indeed first encounter Alice (as she now calls herself) through peeping. At first, she reacts with disgust, but when Hire persistently precipitates “offline” meetings, she and her lover Alfred Chartier decide to frame him up as their fall guy. It is soon revealed Chartier recently bumped off Villejuif’s resident old maid, while waiting for his lover to be released from prison. The murder has the working-class district on edge, but they will be only too willing to pin the crime on Hire. When Alice starts stringing along the awkward lug, she is rather surprised to find she somewhat likes him, but Chartier maintains such a tight Svengali hold over her, she is incapable of backing out.

The plan is simple. Set-up Hire and let the angry mob do the rest. As schemes go, it is pretty elegant in its simplicity and psychologically insightful. This was Duvivier’s French homecoming film after his wartime Hollywood interlude, so it is easy to interpret it as an allegorical indictment of France’s anti-Semitic collaboration. Perhaps to soften the blow, the milieu feels distinctly pre-war, but that ultimately emphasizes how deeply rooted such xenophobic attitudes were within the French social fabric.

It is just painful to watch Simon’s Hire barrel along unaware of the resentments and betrayal simmering around him. He is a tragic figure, sort of the equal opposite of the free-spirited tramp in Boudu Saved from Drowning (the original Down and Out in Beverly Hills), arguably his most recognizable role. Viviane Romance was already an experienced femme fatale, but she makes Alice’s conscience pangs completely convincing, yet hopelessly too little, too late. She has the advantage over Leconte’s Sandrine Bonnaire, in every way. Still, the sly André Wilms certainly distinguishes the later film as the intrepid inspector, whereas all the coppers in Panique are rather colorless government functionaries.

Even by French noir standards, Panique’s criminals are viciously calculatingly sociopaths. The notorious bitterness and archetypal significance of Duvivier highly cinematic climax will surely ring with viewers, even though many will be seeing it for the first time. For too long, Panique has been written about more than screened, due to print quality issues. Happily, it now looks and sounds terrific. Highly recommended for connoisseurs of French cinema, Panique opens this Friday (1/20) in New York, at Film Forum.

NYFF ’14: The Blue Room

In a provincial town, there is no such thing as a no-tell motel. Nevertheless, Julien Gahyde thought he was being discrete in his regular meetings with the village pharmacy owner’s wife in the titular chambre bleue. Inconveniently, he learns their affair was largely common knowledge when he becomes ensnared in a murder inquiry. Just who was killed by whom will be slowly revealed in Mathieu Amalric’s adaptation of the Georges Simenon novel The Blue Room (trailer here), which screens during the 52^nd New York Film Festival.

After a long absence, Gahyde returned to his home town, making good as a John Deere sales rep. It probably was not just lust that drove him into an affair with the sensual Esther Despierre. She also happens to be married to an old classmate, whose wealth and privilege Gahyde always resented. Regardless, her talk about a more permanent arrangement does not sit well with Gahyde, so he uses a near miss with her husband as a pretext for a cooling off period. However, her reckless letters portend bad things. Before long, Gahyde is in prison, fielding questions from the investigating magistrate, but the film’s fractured temporal-hopping narrative structure jealously guards its secrets.

One thing is certain: Gahyde is in a mess of legal trouble. Even if he is technically not guilty, he still bears considerable responsibility for the state of affairs. Amalric and editor François Gédigier keep audiences on their toes with their frequent cuts, often emphasizing oddly elliptical perspectives. There is more than a hint of the old school Nouvelle Vague in their almost Pointillistic approach. (Coincidentally, one of Picasso’s best known Blue Period paintings was also called The Blue Room and it fits the spirit of Amalric’s picture rather well.) Yet, what most distinguishes the film is the degree to which Amalric captures the vibe and essence of Simenon’s non-Maigret hothouse psychological thrillers.

Director-co-screenwriter Amalric also gives himself an important assist, portraying the thoroughly compromised and increasingly confused Gahyde. There is something Kafka-esque about the weasely philanderer that inspires rapt fascination. Frankly, both Madame Gahyde and Despierre are rendered somewhat simplistically, as the standard issue wronged wife and Fatal Attraction mistress, respectively. However, in what might appear to be a disposable role, Serge Bozon (another actor turned director), adds a hard to quantify dimension, hinting there is much more churning beneath his magistrate’s poker face façade.

Amalric nicely distinguishes himself as a triple threat with Blue Room. Brainy and rather steamy at times, The Blue Room belongs in the top rank of Simenon adaptations, in the company of films from the likes of Chabrol, Leconte, and Duvivier. Recommended for fans of mature literary thrillers, The Blue Room screens this Monday (9/29) at Alice Tully Hall and Tuesday (9/30) at the Beale, as part of this year’s NYFF, in advance of its opening at the IFC Center this Friday (10/3).

Cine-Simenon: The Last Train

Women, children, and the well-to-do sit up front.  Prostitutes, ruffians, and the socially marginalized hunker down in the cattle cars bringing up the rear.  Of course, they were Georges Simenon’s kind of people and they turn out to be more fun to travel with in Pierre Granier-Deferre’s The Last Train, an adaptation of Simenon’s tragic romance set amid WWII evacuation chaos, which screens during the Anthology Film Archives’ Cine-Simenon retrospective.

Julien Maroyeur is a shy radio repairman in a sleepy French village on the Belgian border. His out-of-his-league wife is probably the only notable thing about him. Given her very pregnant state, they are reluctant to leave home, but news of the advancing German army convinces them.  The nuns find a place for Madame Maroyeur and their young daughter in a respectable compartment, but he will be stuck in the back of the train.  However, along with the dregs of society, he will share his car with the mysterious Anna. 

Initially, the beautiful woman says very little.  The knuckleheads seem to think her accent sounds German, but she seems more anxious than anyone to avoid the National Socialists.  Effectively segregated from his family, Maroyeur takes a protective interest in the woman that quickly evolves into something far deeper.

Considering Simenon’s controversial wartime years, The Train is a bit of an oddity in his oeuvre.  Nonetheless, it is wholly fitting Granier-Deferre, the Simenon specialist, would be represented in Cine-Simenon.  Incorporating archival WWII newsreel footage into the film, he keeps viewers fully cognizant of the wider geopolitical horrors throughout what is admittedly at times a rather melodramatic story.

Indeed, Granier-Deferre vividly captures the strange nature of the flight.  With everyone losing sight of previous responsibilities, it becomes almost a madcap vacation, punctuated by moments of abject terror.  Tellingly Maroyeur himself admits they have all “lost perspective.”

Last Train might have an odd tonal shift here or there, but it is hard to go too far wrong with Jean-Louis Trintignant and Romy Schneider as the not-so secret lovers.  Their chemistry is quite convincing, because it is clearly rooted in their respective characters’ personalities.  The quiet moments shared by the screen legends have affectionate warmth beyond mere erotic heat.

Much like Man on the Eiffel Tower, there are some less than optimal dubbed prints of Last Train in circulation, so it is worth noting AFA will screen it in its original French with English subtitles.  Despite the often jarring editing, it is a good, solid film, offering a unique perspective on the French civilian war experience.  Anchored by the haunting Schneider, The Last Train is recommended for French film connoisseurs when it screens this Tuesday (8/20) and Wednesday (8/21) at Anthology Film Archives. 

Cine-Simenon: Betty

Betty is blue. How did she get so down-and-out?  That would be a condition many of Georges Simenon’s characters found themselves in. During the course of what is more of a psychological inquiry than a criminal investigation, viewers will learn the truth about the mysterious woman via flashbacks in Claude Chabrol’s Betty, which screens during the Anthology Film Archives’ Cine-Simenon retrospective.

It is fitting Betty Etamble found her way into The Hole.  The aptly named restaurant caters to lost souls and misfits.  Evidently, the rabbit is also delicious.  Observing the woman drinking herself into oblivion with a companion arguably even less stable than herself, Laure Levaucher takes Etamble under her wing.  Ensconcing her in an adjoining room at the Versailles Trianon, her home away from home, Levaucher slowly coaxes a confessional account out of Betty.

It is fair to say Etamble has made her share of mistakes, but she is rather self-aware of her compulsions and their origins in her childhood.  However, the stifling nature of her former life hardly helped matters.  In fact, there is probably plenty of blame to go around.  The nature of Levaucher’s interest in Etamble and vice versa is rather less clear.  In fact, Etamble’s intentions throughout are decidedly murky.

Overdue for his own New York retrospective, Chabrol was an uncannily subtle filmmaker, who excelled at hinting of dark doings just beyond our field of vision.  The deceptively simple Betty was definitely in his power zone, privileging character and mood over narrative.  The film’s essence is supposed to come to viewers through a slow dawning process rather than a sudden flash of revelation.  Mostly it works, but that necessarily means Betty is a purposeful slow burner.

Patrons of French cinema will also understand why Betty promises greatness as a post-divorce collaboration between Chabrol and his ex-wife and frequent muse, Stéphane Audran, whose warm elegance as Levaucher stands in marked contrast to the severe chill of the film’s characters and milieu. 

The film is sort of a family affair, starring Marie Trignant, the ill-fated daughter of Audran’s first husband, Jean-Louis, in the title role.  Sadly, her sensationalized and unnatural death reads like fodder for a Simenon novel.  She is eerily convincing indulging in self-destructive hedonism and reckless gamesmanship.  Oddly though, Chabrol consistently undercuts her as a femme fatale figure, presenting her in a deliberately unappealing (albeit frequently nude) manner.  More often than not, her Etamble is booze-addled and inarticulate, looking disheveled with conspicuous raccoon rings encircling her eyes.

Betty represents the road less taken in film noir, focusing on the intimacy of betrayal instead of a traditional crime story.  The mood remains the same, but the pace is decidedly more languid.  Recommended for fans of Chabrol and Simenon’s “roman durs,” Betty screens tonight (8/13), Friday (8/16), and Saturday (8/17) at the Anthology Film Archives, as part of their Cine-Simenon series.

Cine-Simenon: The Bottom of the Bottle

After the war, Georges Simenon whiled away some pleasant days in Nogales, Arizona. Presumably, he appreciated the charms of bordertown life.  It also became the setting of a somewhat un-Simenon-like tale of fraternal dysfunction. The spirits will flow in Henry Hathaway’s adaptation of The Bottom of the Bottle, which screens during the Anthology Film Archives’ Cine-Simenon retrospective.

It rarely rains on the ranchland outside Nogales, but when it does, the Santa Cruz floods, cutting them off from the rest of the world.  For Paul “P.M.” Martin and his fellow landowners, this means it is time for their traditional floating house parties.  However, the sudden appearance of his brother Donald puts a damper on his mood. While they never really got along, the whole escaped convict thing particularly irks the status conscious P.M. 

Of course, nobody knows about the black sheep sibling he will introduce to his wife Nora and their friends as Eric Bell.  With the river running high, the Martin brothers will just have to bluff their way through until Donald can slip across to his waiting family.  Unfortunately, the younger Martin brother is a recovering alcoholic, under severe stress, about to attend his first rainy season party, which will be all about getting pie-faced hammered.

This is an odd film, but it is a big film, rather dazzlingly shot in Cinemascope by Lee Garmes.  It starts out as a desert noir, segueing into Lost Weekend, marital strife melodrama, and finally shifts into a modern day western, as the highway patrol posse saddles up, chasing the fugitive Martin into the hills.

Granted, Bottle is not a classic classic, but it is rather strange it is not programmed more frequently.  It would certainly make an interesting double bill with Touch of Evil, the classic bordertown noir directed by Joseph Cotten’s old comrade, Orson Welles.  Sort of conceived as a follow-up to Hathaway’s Niagara, also starring Cotten, Bottle is nowhere near as gripping as those two films.  Still, it has Dragnet’s Harry Morgan as a kindly barkeep, who plays Ellington’s “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” during the morning hours.

There are flashes of mordant wit throughout Bottle (the doorbell that rings “How Dry I am” might have been the work of an acerbic stagehand, but it still counts) and Hathaway makes the most of his southwestern locations.  He shrewdly manages to shoehorn in one amazingly cinematic mission church as often as possible.  Indeed, this is a finely crafted production, particularly the Martin’s richly appointed ranch house, which makes the Southfork look like a welfare hotel.  Speaking of Dallas, Jack Davis (a.k.a. Jock Ewing) turns up in a minor role as a member of the Martin’s boozy social circle.  Nonetheless, Bottle’s depiction of the local Hispanic population (probably considered broadmindedly sympathetic at the time) is pretty cringy for contemporary viewers.

Cotten has the right look and presence for P.M. Martin, even if his ascot-looking bandanas are a wardrobe mistake.  Van Johnson also stretches his chops quite notably as the sad sack brother.  Surprisingly though, it is Ruth Roman who really stands out as the assertive but family-oriented Nora Martin, who is rather impressive holding P.M.’s feet to the fire. It is a smarter character and performance than one expect in what is essentially a “helper” role.

So Bottle might not be a good film, per se, but it is entertaining in its way.  A late product of the old school studio system, it demonstrates both the merits and drawbacks of the era, cramming enough interesting stuff into a misconceived vehicle to maintain viewers’ attention the all the way through.  It is definitely the ringer of AFA’s Cine-Simenon, but it still makes sense to include it, because when else could they show it.  Those intrigued should definitely check it out when it screens tomorrow (8/13), Wednesday (8/15), and Sunday (8/18) at Anthology Film Archives.

Cine-Simenon: The Man Who Watched Trains Go By

Those Frenchies are always trying to corrupt their guileless provincial European neighbors.  Georges Simenon certainly would have known.  Technically, he was Belgian, but he was an expert on Parisian fast living.  One timid Dutch clerk gets his own crash course in Harold French’s The Man Who Watched Trains Go By (a.k.a. Paris Express), which screens during the Anthology Film Archives’ Cine-Simenon retrospective.

Kees Popinga was born to be a bookkeeper.  Quiet and detail-oriented, he spends his weekly night out at the chess club, where his boss, Julius de Koster is also a member.  His only eccentricity is a passion for trains, whose timetable he has memorized.  One day, Inspector Lucas visits his firm from Paris as part of a mysterious investigation.  It seems to involve the beautiful French woman Popinga happened to spy de Koster affectionately seeing off at the train station.

Confronting the haughty de Koster, Popinga learns he has looted the company in order to abscond with his French lover.  An altercation ensues, spurring the unprepossessing Popinga to take flight.  Assuming one Dutchman with a suitcase full of cash is as good as another, Popinga sets out to find the femme fatale, Michele Rozier.  He is right of course, but not in a happily-ever-after kind of way.  Better understanding the shady characters conspiring against him, Inspector Lucas will scramble to find the naïve Popinga before his mad interlude completely spirals out of control.

Trains might not be the absolutely best noir ever filmed, but it boasts two Phantoms of the Opera: Claude Rains (star of Universal’s 1943 color remake) as Popinga and Herbert Lom (featured in the 1962 Hammer production) as the hypocritical de Koster.  Future international movie star Anouk Aimée also steals all her brief scenes as the alluring Jeanne, a “professional” colleague of Rozier’s.

There is also plenty of Simenon-ness to Trains, particularly the cat-and-mouse game played by Popinga and the Inspector.  Indeed, Lucas is a good copper, balancing cunning and compassion in the Maigret tradition.  The underappreciated Marius Goring is one of Train’s best assets, playing Lucas with considerable intelligence and flair. 

Of course, Rains is perfectly dependable, if not career-defining, as the mild-mannered Popinga.  His convincingly slide from respectability to manic self-destruction recalls some of his early Universal work, like in Edwin Drood.  Frankly, despite her greater screen time and stylish villainy, Märta “the next Ingrid Bergman” Torén’s Rozier is overshadowed by Anouk (as Train simply billed her).

The Man Who Watched Trains Go By is a presentable noir, distinguished by its tragic tone and the decency of its sleuth.  Nicely representing the themes and motifs of Simenon’s “roman durs,” his psychologically complex, non-Maigret novels, it makes a good fit for Anthology’s Cine-Simenon series.  Recommended for fans of Rains and noirs in general, it screens tomorrow (8/12) and Wednesday the 21^st at Anthology Film Archives.

Cine-Simenon: Monsieur Hire

The nebbish sorts often have a hard time of it in Simenon’s work.  The Belgian crime writer took rather perverse delight in up-ending their drab, regimented lives.  Such will be the case for a stand-offish tailor in Patrice Leconte’s Monsieur Hire (trailer here), which screens during the Anthology Film Archives’ Cine-Simenon retrospective.

People do not like Hire, but he does not think much of them either.  His meaningful human contact will largely be confined to two rather out of the ordinary relationships. Alice is the object of his obsession.  As fate would have it, his flat window is perfectly situated to spy on all her intimate moments.  Discovering her peeping tom, Alice starts initiating encounters between them. Something about the awkward Hire just seems to intrigue her.

Unfortunately, when a young woman’s body is discovered, Hire’s neighbors are only too willing to suspect him.  With their encouragement, a world-weary police inspector very publically dogs the shunned tailor, in the tradition of Columbo—and of course Maigret.  However, Leconte’s take on Simenon (co-adapted by Patrick Dewolf) will masterfully undermine viewers’ assumptions.

Hire is anti-social, but it is not his fault.  He was born that way.  Unfortunately, misanthropes like him will always face hostility and discrimination.  Frankly, Leconte’s film is one of the few attempts to empathize with such an unappealing character.  As a result, there is necessarily quite a bit of creepiness and clamminess going on, yet the film is still quite effective as a film noir psychological thriller.

It is rather alarming how perfectly Michel Blanc essays the look and essence of the severely withdrawn Hire.  As restrained and frustrating as the character might be, we still get a vivid sense of all the messiness bottled up inside him.  In contrast, the glacial, cipher-like Sandrine Bonnaire is a somewhat problematic femme fatale.  However, André Wilms has never gotten his proper due for his subtly surprising turn as the Simenon-esque Inspector.

Monsieur Hire is a very dark film, addressing some provocative themes, but there is a humanistic foundation to it all.  Definitely a film for intelligent adult audiences, it is a fitting selection for AFA’s  Cine-Simenon series.  Recommended for fans of film noir and French cinema, it screens tomorrow (8/11) and next Saturday (8/17) at Anthology.

Cine-Simenon: A Man’s Neck

Georges Simenon led a colorful life.  There might have been a few women and some fast living.  After the war, he also faced allegations of collaboration, but his defenders always maintained he was too self-absorbed for such matters.  Harry Baur was one of a multitude of actors to play Simenon’s signature detective, whose wartime experience is tragically above suspicion.  Imprisoned and roughly interrogated after ill-advisedly appearing in an early 1940’s German film, Baur either succumbed to injuries sustained or was helped along the way shortly after his release. His biographic details add further tragic context to Julien Duvivier’s A Man’s Neck, which screens during the Anthology Film Archives’ Cine-Simenon retrospective.

Willy Ferrière has a rich aunt, who refuses to die, but a mystery pen-pal offers to help the old dear along for 100,000 francs.  The freelance killer also has a scapegoat lined up to take the fall: the clueless Joseph Heurtin.  Yes, this is the Maigret case Burgess Meredith later adapted as The Man on the Eiffel Tower, but it is simultaneously similar and different in intriguing ways.

As it happens, both films also serve as time capsules of Paris, pre- and post-war.  Not surprisingly though, the earlier French film is darker and somewhat franker than the RKO production.  The stories run along parallel lines, but diverge on key points, such as the complicity of Ferrière’s mistress in Duvivier’s film.  Indeed, there is little innocence per se in this distinctly dark crime drama.

Both Baur and Laughton look like world weary civil servants, but the latter could not help playing the part with panache.  He was Charles Laughton, after all.  In contrast, Baur’s Maigret is a down-trodden bureaucrat often at risk of fading into the background, until roused to outrage by the psychotic Radek.  It is a close call, but in a head-to-head match, Laughton probably takes it by a jowl.

Likewise, Meredith’s Heurtin is a truly unique portrait of a man made vulnerable by his acutely anti-social nature.  Alexandre Rignault’s Heurtin also quite effective, but we have seen such simple-minded hulks before and since.  However, Valéry Inkijinoff’s frenzied and lusty Radek is something else entirely. Franchot Tone exceeds expectations in Eiffel Tower, but the Russian Inkijinoff is truly creepy.

In fact, both are very good films.  Duvivier shows an eye for procedural detail, giving viewers an unromanticized look inside the Paris gendarmerie. While more naturalistic and generally jaundiced in his portrayal of human nature, Duvivier also shoehorns in small, elegantly telling moments, as when Maigret and Radek take time out from their verbal sparring to listen to his Chanson-singing neighbor.

Neck is a lean, mean film noir that packs surprising punch. It is a deeply flawed world, but not one in which moral judgments are impossible.  Recommended by itself or in conjunction with Meredith’s Eiffel Tower (showing separately), A Man’s Neck screens this Saturday (8/10) and next Wednesday (8/14) as part of Cine-Simenon, now underway at Anthology Film Archives.

Cine-Simenon: The Man on the Eiffel Tower

Georges Simenon remains one of the best known Belgian writers, but his signature detective, French Police Commissaire Jules Maigret has been played by French, British, Dutch, Italian, Armenian, Czech, Russian, and Japanese actors.  British born Hollywood legend Charles Laughton also picked up Maigret’s trademark pipe for a memorable one-off, The Man on the Eiffel Tower, directed by the Burgess Meredith, which screens as part of Anthology Film Archives new retrospective, Cine-Simenon.

It is post-war Paris, where expat Bill Kirby has a wife, a mistress, a rich but prickly old aunt, and an aversion to work.  After he complains about the old dear’s longevity in a crowded café, a mystery man slips him a note.  His problem can be solved for 100,000 Francs.  He need only mail her key to an anonymous postal drop—and so he does.

For Maigret, the most suspicious aspect of the crime scene is how thoroughly it implicates the Joseph Heurtin. The bespectacled knife-grinder simply does not strike Maigret as a killer.  Playing a hunch, the Inspector allows Heurtin to escape, hoping he will lead the police to the master criminal pulling his strings.  Maigret soon concludes the real murderer is the Czech Johann Radek, a dissolute former medical student.  However, proving it will be a trickier matter.  Thus commences a game of cat and mouse that will indeed take both men to the famous Parisian landmark.

All AFA screenings will be in 35mm, which is good to know, since there are some pretty scruffy prints of Eiffel in circulation.  Evidently, it was one of the few films shot on a certain brand of color stock that has not aged gracefully.  Nonetheless, it is jolly good little suspenser, as well as an evocative time-capsule of post-war Paris.

Frankly, it is a shame Charles Laughton went one-and-done as Maigret, because he fits the part like a comfortably rumpled suit.  It would make a good double feature with his classic performance as the not-quite-as-crafty-as-he-thinks-he-is Sir Wilfrid in Billy Wilder’s Witness for the Prosecution.  In addition to helming with economy and style (reportedly with the occasional assist from his two big name co-stars), Burgess Meredith is effectively squirrely as Heurtin, even foreshadowing hints of Henry Bemis in the classic Twilight Zone episode Time Enough at Last.  Yet, perhaps the greatest revelation is Franchot Tone’s diabolically manic Radek.

Indeed, Laughton’s shrewd persona, Simenon’s clever plotting, and the still impressively dizzying climax promised by the title are hard combination to beat.  An all-around entertaining classic, Eiffel does right by the source novel, which was also the basis for an earlier French adaptation duly included in Cine-Simenon as well.  Highly recommended regardless of the condition of its surviving prints, The Man on the Eiffel Tower screens this Friday (8/9) and Sunday the 18^th at the Anthology Film Archives.

The Multinational from London

Although Belgian Georges Simenon’s crime fiction often had a strong psychological component, his novels still might seem to be unlikely source material for Hungarian art-house director Béla Tarr. Indeed, some will surely wish Simenon’s most famous character, Inspector Maigret, was on hand to spur the action along in Tarr’s painstakingly deliberate adaptation of The Man from London, screening this week at MoMA.

In an exquisitely filmed opening tracking shot, we see the nocturnal world of Maloin, the railway switchman at a seaport station. Given the late hour and foggy ambiance, it seems like anyone about must be up to something nefarious. Indeed, the two shadowy figures moving in and out of Maloin’s field of vision eventually scuffle over a suitcase, sending one permanently into the drink. When the coast is clear, Maloin ventures down to fish out their suitcase, which he discovers is full of British pounds. So we have our MacGuffin and the game’s a foot, right? Not exactly.

London is a master class in the use of light and shadow, but not in breakneck thriller pacing. Tarr’s shots are meticulously composed and Fred Kelemen’s black-and-white cinematography is arresting. Every still of the film is worthy of framing. However, pulling viewers through the story is clearly not their priority.

For the most part, the actors, like Czech Miroslav Krobot as Maloin, are just props for Tarr, walking in and out of his scenes as needed. American audiences will recognize Tilda Swinton as Maloin’s wife, Camélia, but it is a largely thankless role. However, Hungarian actor István Lénárt provides the film’s only spark of energy as Morrison, an elegantly sinister British investigator, reminiscent of the sort of roles Alec Guinness excelled at late in his career.

Tarr plays games with perception and implies more than he shows. Yet, London adopts enough of the trappings of a film noir mystery that it is not unfair to judge it in that context. Though never explicitly stated, the setting seems vaguely French, shot on location in Corsica. A notoriously cursed project, there may have been more intrigue behind the scenes of London, than on the screen. The suicide of the original French producer led to a long hiatus in production, as the Hungarian-French-German-U.K. financing became even more complicated. The result is a fascinating exasperation of a viewing experience that screens at MoMA through Sunday.