User Reviews

Good to see Rupert Davies reprising his classic role as Simenon's Chief Inspector Maigret. Sadly missing the excellent Ewen Solon as Lucas and, of course, Victor Lucas as Torrance (for the obvious reason that they killed the character off!) Nevertheless this is a pretty faithful dramatisation of the story. Pity there weren't more Maigrets broadcast, Simenon had written a goodly number more since the series ended in 1962.

This episode, televised in the UK in 1969, is possibly the last episode made with Rupert Davies. Interesting that they used Citroën DS cars rather than the iconic Traction Avants. The plot makes perfect sense and is very faithful to the novel - perhaps esmondj fell asleep halfway through. A shame the film was cut off before the credits. I would have liked to have seen Ewen Solon's Sergeant Lucas but I can't remember Dr Pardon, a regular character in the stories, being portrayed before. One thing that makes Davies' Maigret especially convincing, and his casting had Simenon's full approval, is that he's a real pipe-smoker, unlike some of the actors in later portrayals.

Final belated instalment, in a way, of the long-running 1960-4 series, lacking several prior cast members who were either unavailable or had been written out one way or the other. They shoulda quit already. The plot of this episode makes no sense whatsoever: why exactly were the people concerned trying to conceal what they were trying to conceal? And why did they depute the person they deputed to do what she did?

On the other hand, the high point, literally, of this episode, shot in 1969, is that mini-skirts were also, literally, at their high point. If you like that sort of thing ;-)

My mother used to love this series because she had formed the quite erroneous belief that Mme Maigret did all the real detection. This episode is the only instance known to me of Mme contributing anything to a case whatsoever other than cooked lunch and dinner every working day.