The listings below (which are comprehensive, but not exhaustive) are divided into films based on Maigret novels and those based on romans durs, and each list is chronological by the year in which the films were first released. The original title is indicated first (in its original language, where possible) and the country of origin, together with the year of release. This is followed by the title of an English translation of the original work on which the film is based. The subsequent headings depend on the information available for each film, but include, as a rule, director, adaptation (which includes screenplay and dialogue), and main actors (some well-known French actors are known by their family names only). Further information and comments are added where relevant.
Much more than the Simenon novels discussed in this study, it has been a particularly challenging task tracking down many of the films listed below, only some of which have obtained official releases on disc, and in some cases I have had to rely on my notes on viewing the films from years ago. (I am grateful for several contributions by Howard Curtis for some of the films I have been unable to see.)
Only those films for which information can be verified through reliable sources have been included. The listings are therefore not complete. One film has been deliberately omitted, because it contains only a short sketch based on the Maigret short story ‘The Evidence of the Altar-Boy’, among other sketches. The title of the film is Brelan d’As, directed by Henri Verneuil, with Michel Simon as Maigret. It was released in 1952.
Maigret on Film
It didn’t take long for canny filmmakers to realise the great potential of Maigret as a recurring screen detective – not least for the fact that the books were already much loved by the time the first film adaptation appeared. The first actor to portray Maigret on screen was the celebrated Pierre Renoir in Night at the Crossroads/La Nuit du Carrefour. Apart from the nicely judged, understated performance by the actor, the film had another considerable advantage: it was directed in 1932 by the actor’s brother, the great Jean Renoir (director of the masterly La Règle du Jeu). This was, in fact, a good year for screen Maigrets, as another important director, Julien Duvivier, cast Harry Baur as the detective in La Tête d’un Homme, a solid if rather steadily paced outing that nevertheless honoured Simenon’s original conception.
Gallic screen Maigrets aside, the first English-language incarnation of the detective was delivered by one of Britain’s greatest character actors, Charles Laughton, in The Man on the Eiffel Tower, an adaptation of the novel A Man’s Head/La Tête d’un Homme. The supporting cast was shored up by a bushel of other reliable character stars: Franchot Tone, Burgess Meredith (who also co-directed the film with Laughton) and Wilfrid Hyde-White among them. As so often in his career, Laughton could not resist incorporating several of his larger-than-life mannerisms into his assumption of Maigret, with a theatricality some distance from the low-key characterisations of the novels. But few viewers would have complained at the time, given the sheer value for money that Laughton provided in the part.
France was to provide a series of Maigret films: three, in fact, in which the actor Albert Préjean capably played the inspector: Picpus (1943), Cécile Est Morte (1944) and Les Caves du Majestic (1945). But efficient though Préjean’s performance was, there was one actor who was clearly born to play Maigret – or so French audiences would have assumed – the great Jean Gabin. Solidly built, middle-aged and projecting an aura of authority and reliability, Gabin was perfect casting in three films: Maigret Tend un Piège (1958), the less successful Maigret et l’Affaire Saint-Fiacre (1959) and Maigret Voit Rouge (1963), the weakest of the three, with Maigret up against some gangsters in a rather desultory fashion. Despite the inconsistencies of the films, one might have assumed that Gabin’s casting would have pleased the detective’s creator, but, as we shall see, the perfect screen Maigret – in Simenon’s eyes – was to appear from another source. One other Maigret on film should be noted at this point: Heinz Rühmann (a very uncanonical-looking Maigret) in Alfred Weidenmann’s Maigret und sein größter Fall in 1966. Its miscast lead aside, the film bore signs of its international co-production status, and while not a ‘Euro-pudding’ (to use the familiar dismissive term for compromised international co-productions in which the various elements fail to coalesce), it has its virtues, despite being one of the less memorable entries in the Maigret filmography.
La Nuit du Carrefour
France, 1932 (Night at the Crossroads).
Director: Jean Renoir.
Adaptation: Jean Renoir and Georges Simenon.
Main actors: Pierre Renoir (Maigret), Winna Winifried, Georges Koudria, Georges Térof, Dignimont, Lucie Vallat.
Comments: Among the director Jean Renoir’s sound films, La Nuit du Carrefour is somewhat under-regarded, but a filmmaker from another generation, the Nouvelle Vague rebel Jean-Luc Godard, was an inordinate admirer and called it ‘the only great French detective movie’. The Hungarian director Béla Tarr observed that his own Simenon film The Man from London (see below) was made under the spell of Renoir’s film. There is no doubt that the latter deserves a much wider currency than it has enjoyed.
Le Chien Jaune
France, 1932 (The Yellow Dog).
Director: Jean Tarride.
Adaptation: Jean Tarride and Georges Simenon.
Main actors: Abel Tarride (Maigret), Rosine Deréan, Jane Loury, Rolla Norman, Anthony Gildès, Robert Le Vigan.
Comments: While efficiently played, Abel Tarride’s Maigret in Le Chien Jaune remains one of the less distinctive iterations of the inspector to be put on film.
La Tête d’un Homme
France, 1933 (A Man’s Head).
Director: Julian Duvivier.
Adaptation: Louis Delaprée, Julien Duvivier and Pierre Calmann.
Main actors: Harry Baur (Maigret), Valéry Inkijinoff, Gina Manès, Line Noro, Gaston Jacquet, Alexandre Rignault.
Comments: Inkijinoff and Simenon themselves had worked on an adaptation of the novel, which Simenon thought of producing himself, but this was not used by Julian Duvivier. Harry Baur’s is a notably successful version of Maigret, with the actor conveying sensitively the empathy of the character.
Picpus
France, 1943 (To Any Lengths).
Director: Richard Pottier.
Adaptation: Jean-Paul Le Chanois.
Main actors: Albert Préjean (Maigret), Jean Tissier, Édouard Delmont, Juliette Faber, Guillaume de Sax, Noël Roquevert.
Comments: In the wave of Simenon adaptations that were controversially made during the German occupation of France, Richard Pottier’s takes an unusual approach for Maigret films, eschewing the more serious aspects of earlier works and emphasising a light comedy ethos (perhaps unsurprising, given the black mood of the French population under the German heel).
Cécile Est Morte
France, 1944 (Cécile Is Dead).
Director: Maurice Tourneur.
Adaptation: Jean-Paul Le Chanois and Michel Duran.
Main actors: Albert Préjean (Maigret), Santa Relli, Germaine Kerjean, Luce Fabiole, Liliane Maigné, André Gabriello, André Reybaz.
Comments: These days, the son of director Maurice Tourneur, Jacques, is perhaps better known than his father for such imperishable films as Out of the Past. But Maurice Tourneur was a considerable talent himself, as this solidly made Simenon adaptation proves. The contribution of art director Guy de Gastyne is equally impressive, and the film’s neglect may be partly down to the fact that it was another adaptation made during the benighted period of the German occupation.
Les Caves du Majestic
France, 1945 (The Cellars of the Majestic).
Director: Richard Pottier.
Adaptation: Charles Spaak.
Main actors: Albert Préjean (Maigret), André Gabriello, Suzy Prim, Jean Marchat, Denise Grey, Jacques Baumer, René Génin, Florelle.
The Man on the Eiffel Tower
USA, 1949 (A Man’s Head).
Director: Burgess Meredith.
Adaptation: Harry Brown and John Cortez.
Main actors: Charles Laughton (Maigret), Franchot Tone, Burgess Meredith, Robert Hutton, Jean Wallace, Patricia Roc, Belita, George Thorpe, William Phipps, William Cottrell, Chaz Chase, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Howard Vernon.
Comments: This version of Simenon’s popular novel had a troubled production history, including such problems as the film’s star Charles Laughton threatening to walk off the picture over a variety of disagreements with the director Irving Allen (who left the film and was replaced as director by Laughton’s fellow actor Burgess Meredith). Unusually for a film with the scene-stealing British actor, Laughton is on less than impressive form here, and gives a rather underpowered performance; Franchot Tone (as a suspect) is more watchable.
Maigret Dirige l’Enquête
UK/France, 1956 (based on various works – see comment below).
Director: Stany Cordier.
Main actors: Maurice Manson (Maigret), Svetlana Pitoëff, Peter Walker, Michel André.
Comments: Maigret Dirige l’Enquête is one of the mysteries of cinematic history. It is a film that is rarely shown, and one critic who viewed it in 1979 was not able to come to any firm conclusions about it. It seems to be a British film, but it was filmed in Paris for the exterior shots. The actor, named in the credits as Maurice Manson, who plays Maigret, looks uncannily like Georges Simenon. Generally, the film is considered something of a disaster, but it has novelty value. It consists of several sketches based loosely on three Maigret works: Cécile Is Dead, Death of a Nobody and Maigret and the Tall Woman.
Maigret Tend un Piège
France, 1958 (Maigret Sets a Trap).
Director: Jean Delannoy.
Adaptation: Rodolphe-Maurice Arlaud, Michel Audiard and Jean Delannoy.
Main actors: Jean Gabin (Maigret), Annie Girardot, Jean Desailly, Jeanne Boitel, Gérard Séty, Lucienne Bogaërt, Jean Debucourt, Olivier Hussenot, Lino Ventura.
Comments: Generally considered to be one of the most creative and fully achieved versions of Simenon’s work on film. As Howard Curtis noted when we discussed it, Maigret Tend un Piège is the first and best of Jean Gabin’s three incarnations as Maigret. The film also boasts powerful supporting performances by Jean Desailly and Annie Girardot. It positively drips with Parisian atmosphere – in part due to the haunting theme music by Paul Misraki – although, as was common in French cinema of this period, its Paris is scrupulously recreated in the studio.
Maigret et l’Affaire Saint-Fiacre
France, 1959 (The Saint-Fiacre Affair).
Director: Jean Delannoy.
Adaptation: Rodolphe-Maurice Arlaud, Jean Delannoy and Michel Audiard.
Main actors: Jean Gabin (Maigret), Valentine Tessier, Michel Auclair, Michel Vitold, Robert Hirsch, Paul Frankeur, Jacques Morel, Armande Navarre.
Comments: When the Young Turks of the French Nouvelle Vague began taking potshots at an earlier generation of filmmakers (who they planned to supplant), there were several directors who were dismissed by the new young talents as fusty members of the ‘Cinéma du Papa’, out-of-date figures. One egregious casualty was the director Jean Delannoy, whose dismissal was particularly unjust, as this solid Simenon adaptation proves. A reassessment of the film by critic Jacques Lacourcelles went some way to restoring the reputation of the director, with Jean Gabin on fine form as the inspector visiting the town where he grew up.
Maigret Voit Rouge
France, 1963 (Maigret, Lognon and the Gangsters).
Director: Gilles Grangier.
Adaptation: Jacques Robert and Gilles Grangier.
Main actors: Jean Gabin (Maigret), Françoise Fabian, Vittorio Sanipoli, Paul Carpenter, Ricky Cooper, Michel Constantin, Paul Frankeur, Harry-Max, Guy Decomble.
Maigret und sein größter Fall
Germany, 1966 (The Dancer at the Gai-Moulin).
Director: Alfred Weidenmann.
Adaptation: Herbert Reinecker.
Main actors: Heinz Rühmann (Maigret), Françoise Prévost, Günther Stoll, Günter Strack, Gerd Vespermann, Eddi Arent, Günther Ungeheuer, Alexander Kerst, Ulli Lommel.
Comments: As well as appearing in the long-running British television series, Rupert Davies might have played Maigret in this adaptation, which hardly lives up to the translation of the title as ‘Maigret’s Greatest Case’. After Davies left over script disagreements, Heinz Rühmann took over as the inspector, delivering a rather bland and characterless performance. The final effect of the film is that of a workaday effort.
Maigret a Pigalle
Italy, 1967 (Maigret at Picratt’s).
Director: Mario Landi.
Adaptation: Sergio Amidei and Mario Landi.
Main actors: Gino Cervi (Maigret), Lila Kedrova, Raymond Pellegrin, Alfred Adam, Christian Barbier, José Greci, Daniel Ollier, Enzo Cerusico.
Comments: This is a film version made as a spin-off from the long-running Italian TV series starring Gino Cervi. The first episode was also called Maigret a Pigalle and was broadcast in 1962. Some 36 episodes were planned for the series.
Maigret
France, 2022 (Maigret and the Dead Girl).
Director: Patrice Leconte.
Adaptation: Patrice Leconte and Jérôme Tonnerre.
Main actors: Gérard Depardieu, Jade Labeste, Aurore Clément, Mélanie Bernier.
Romans Durs on Film
Dernier Refuge
France, 1940 (The Lodger).
Director: Jacques Constant.
Adaptation: Jacques Constant and André-Paul Antoine.
Main actors: Mireille Balin, Georges Rigaud, Marie Glory, Marcel Dalio, Saturnin Fabre, Mila Parély, Jean Tissier, Christian Argentin, Roger Blin.
Comments: This film is no longer available. Filming was apparently started in August 1939 at the Studios Saint-Maurice, but was interrupted after three weeks because of the declaration of war on 3 September. It continued eventually, and the production was finished in April 1940. The original negatives of the film were destroyed during a laboratory fire.
Annette et la Dame Blonde
France, 1942 (based on a short story published in the collection La Rue aux Trois Poussins, 1963 (not translated into English)).
Director: Jean Dréville.
Adaptation: Henri Decoin and Michel Duran.
Main actors: Louise Carletti, Henri Garat, Georges Rollin, Mona Goya, Simone Valère, Rosine Luguet, Marcelle Rexiane.
La Maison des Sept Jeunes Filles
France, 1942 (based on a 1941 novel of the same name (not translated into English)).
Director: Albert Valentin.
Adaptation: Jacques Viot, Maurice Blondeau and Charles Spaak.
Main actors: André Brunot, Jean Tissier, Jean Pâqui, Jean Rigaux, Marguerite Deval, René Bergeron, Paul Demange. The seven young girls were played by Gaby Andreu, Geneviève Beau, Jacqueline Bouvier, Josette Daydé, Solange Delporte, Marianne Hardy and Primerose Perret.
Les Inconnus dans la Maison
France, 1942 (The Strangers in the House).
Director: Henri Decoin.
Adaptation: Henri-Georges Clouzot.
Main actors: Raimu, Juliette Faber, Gabrielle Fontan, Jacques Baumer, Héléna Manson, Jean Tissier, Lucien Coëdel.
Comments: Not for the first time in discussions concerning the work of Simenon, issues of anti-Semitism were raised regarding the film Les Inconnus dans la Maison. The actor Marcel Mouloudji played a character who was initially called ‘Ephraïm Luska’. Subsequent to the initial release in 1942, when the film was banned for its perceived anti-Semitic content after the war, re-release prints removed any indication that the character was Jewish, with his name re-voiced as Amédé (except for one occasion in a trial scene where the actor Raimu still uses the original name). These issues aside, the film is a more than respectable entry in the Simenon filmic canon. Apparently Joseph Losey refused to do a remake in 1963, because of what he described as a disastrous adaptation by George Tabori.
Monsieur La Souris
France, 1942 (Monsieur La Souris).
Director: Georges Lacombe.
Adaptation: Marcel Achard.
Main actors: Raimu, Aimé Clariond, Charles Granval, Micheline Francey, Raymond Aimos, Pierre Jourdan, Gilbert Gil, Marie Carlot.
Comments: This efficient adaptation was apparently the first film based on a Simenon novel to be released in the USA, under the title Midnight in Paris.
Le Voyager de la Toussaint
France, 1943 (Strange Inheritance).
Director: Louis Daquin.
Adaptation: Marcel Aymé and Louis Daquin.
Main actors: Assia Noris, Jules Berry, Gabrielle Dorziat, Guillaume de Sax, Roger Karl, Louis Seigner, Alexandre Rignault.
Comments: Apparently, if the viewer remains alert, it is possible to spot Simone Signoret among the extras.
L’Homme de Londres
France, 1943 (The Man from London).
Director: Henri Decoin.
Adaptation: Henri Decoin and Charles Exbrayat.
Main actors: Fernand Ledoux, Jules Berry, Suzy Prim, Héléna Manson, Blanche Montel, Jean Brochard, Mony Dalmès.
Panique
France, 1947 (Mr Hire’s Engagement).
Director: Julien Duvivier.
Adaptation: Charles Spaak and Julien Duvivier.
Main actors: Michel Simon, Viviane Romance, Paul Bernard, Charles Dorat, Max Dalban, Magdeleine Gidon, Lucas Gridoux.
Comments: Julien Duvivier’s Panique is another film that belongs in the first rank of Simenon adaptations, with direction and acting of a rare order. As Howard Curtis said to me: ‘Panique is one of the finest works by one of the most important French directors.’ This film boasts a riveting central performance, at once creepy and sympathetic, by Michel Simon, a great actor who specialised in offbeat roles. Coming so soon after the occupation, its sour portrait of a community turning against an outsider (a frequent theme in Simenon) may have hit a nerve, accounting for its initial frosty reception, but it is now recognised as a masterpiece of the period. Fascinating to compare with Patrice Leconte’s Monsieur Hire, a much later adaptation of the same source novel.
Dernier Refuge
France, 1947 (The Lodger).
Director: Marc Maurette.
Adaptation: Marc Maurette and Maurice Griffe.
Main actors: Raymond Rouleau, Mila Parély, Gisèle Pascal, Jean-Max, Marcel Carpentier, Noël Roquevert, Tramel.
Temptation Harbour
UK, 1947 (The Man from London).
Director: Lance Comfort.
Adaptation: Victor Skutezky, Fritz Gottfurcht (as Frederick Gotfurt) and Rodney Ackland.
Main actors: Robert Newton, Simone Simon, William Hartnell, Marcel Dalio, Margaret Barton, Edward Rigby, Joan Hopkins, Charles Victor, Kathleen Harrison, Irene Handl.
Comments: In the peculiar subgenre of British film noir – with production values less upholstered than those in the corresponding American product – a concomitant gain can be found in the unglamorous treatment of lives lived in quiet desperation. This is very much the case here, with the Gallic accoutrements of the original Simenon novel effectively transformed into a British setting (although the presence of Simone Simon, the star of Jacques Tourneur’s Cat People, lends a French touch). Robert Newton, an actor well known for his scenery-chewing performances, is more restrained than usual here.
La Marie du Port
France, 1950 (Chit of a Girl).
Director: Marcel Carné.
Adaptation: Louis Chavance, Marcel Carné and Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes.
Main actors: Jean Gabin, Nicole Courcel, Blanchette Brunoy, Claude Romain, Julien Carette, Jane Marken, Georges Vitray.
Comments: It is reported that the writer Jacques Prévert worked on the design of the film, but this was not officially acknowledged. Rumours circulated for several years about plans for the film, and for a long time it was assumed that it would be directed by Pierre Billon, with the artist Maurice de Vlaminck designing the decor. That would have been an interesting choice, as Vlaminck was a close personal friend of Simenon.
Midnight Episode
USA, 1950 (Monsieur La Souris).
Director: Gordon Parry.
Adaptation: Rita Barisse, Reeve Tyler, Paul Vincent Carroll, David Evans and William Templeton.
Main actors: Stanley Holloway, Leslie Dwyer, Reginald Tate, Meredith Edwards, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Joy Shelton, Natasha Parry, Raymond Young, Leslie Perrins, Sebastian Cabot.
La Vérité sur Bébé Donge
France, 1952 (The Trial of Bébé Donge).
Director: Henri Decoin.
Adaptation: Maurice Aubergé.
Main actors: Danielle Darrieux, Jean Gabin, Daniel Lecourtois, Claude Génia, Gabrielle Dorziat, Jacqueline Porel, Jacques Castelot.
Comments: La Vérité sur Bébé Donge is not the most faithful of Simenon adaptations, but with two sacred monsters of French cinema in the main roles, the story’s portrayal of a troubled marriage comes across as powerfully as in the source novel.
Le Fruit Défendu
France, 1952 (Act of Passion).
Director: Henri Verneuil.
Adaptation: Jacques Companéez, Jean Manse and Henri Verneuil.
Main actors: Fernandel, Sylvie, Françoise Arnoul, Claude Nollier, Jacques Castelot, Raymond Pellegrin, René Génin.
Comments: It was a brave decision indeed to cast the famous comic actor Fernandel as an obsessed murderer in Le Fruit Défendu. The resulting film is only fitfully successful, despite Henri Verneuil’s best efforts.
The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By
USA, 1953 (The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By).
Director: Harold French.
Adaptation: Harold French and Paul Jarrico (originally uncredited).
Main actors: Claude Rains, Märta Torén, Marius Goring, Herbert Lom, Anouk Aimée, Lucie Mannheim, Felix Aylmer, Eric Pohlmann, Ferdy Mayne.
Comments: The film is said to have been offered to Joseph Losey but then he was put on the anti-communist blacklist and had to leave Hollywood. Claude Rains, one of the best character actors that the British Isles ever produced, is perfectly cast as Simenon’s doomed protagonist, with strong support from the likes of Marius Goring, Herbert Lom, Anouk Aimée and Felix Aylmer.
La Neige Était Sale
France, 1954 (The Snow Was Dirty).
Director: Luis Saslavsky.
Adaptation: Luis Saslavsky and André Tabet.
Main actors: Daniel Gélin, Valentine Tessier, Marie Mansart, Daniel Ivernel, Véra Norman, Nadine Basile, Joëlle Bernard, Antoine Balpêtré.
A Life in the Balance
USA, 1955 (‘Seven Little Crosses in a Notebook’ in Maigret’s Christmas).
Director: Harry Horner and Rafael Portillo (co-director).
Adaptation: Robert Presnell Jr and Leo Townsend.
Main actors: Ricardo Montalban, Anne Bancroft, Lee Marvin, José Pérez, Rodolfo Acosta, Carlos Múzquiz, Jorge Treviño.
The Bottom of the Bottle
USA, 1955 (The Bottom of the Bottle).
Director: Henry Hathaway.
Adaptation: Sydney Boehm.
Main actors: Van Johnson, Joseph Cotten, Ruth Roman, Jack Carson, Bruce Bennett, Brad Dexter, Peggy Knudsen, Jim Davis.
Comments: Non-French attempts at filming the novels of Simenon have been hit and miss, and director Henry Hathaway’s The Bottom of the Bottle is something of a curate’s egg, but it has undoubted plus points. Hathaway, one of Hollywood’s most reliable professionals, put together an intriguing picture of family conflict with clashes between very disparate siblings to the fore. If Van Johnson (as an alcoholic on the run who has previously killed a man in a barroom fight) and Joseph Cotten (as an upscale solicitor) are encouraged to give unmodulated performances, the usually bland Ruth Roman is on top form as an embittered wife. There is also a strong supporting cast including Bruce Bennett, Pedro Gonzalez and Jack Carson. The Tucson, Arizona settings are some distance from Simenon’s usual stamping grounds, but the final result is a diverting take on a key non-Maigret novel.
Le Sang à la Tête
France, 1956 (Young Cardinaud).
Director: Gilles Grangier.
Adaptation: Gilles Grangier and Michel Audiard.
Main actors: Jean Gabin, Paul Frankeur, Renée Faure, Monique Mélinand, José Quaglio, Claude Sylvain, Georgette Anys.
Le Passager Clandestin
France, 1958 (The Stowaway).
Director: Ralph Habib.
Adaptation: Maurice Aubergé, Ralph Habib and Paul Andréota.
Main actors: Martine Carol, Karlheinz Böhm, Arletty, Serge Reggiani, Roger Livesey, Reg Lye, Maëa Flohr.
Comments: It would appear that this was an international co-production, as it is credited to Discifilm and Silver Film in Paris, but also to Southern Films International, Sydney. The list of actors is also truly international, including, among others, French, German, Italian and British names.
The Brothers Rico
USA, 1958 (The Brothers Rico).
Director: Phil Karlson.
Adaptation: Lewis Meltzer, Ben Perry and Dalton Trumbo (uncredited – he was blacklisted at the time).
Main actors: Richard Conte, Dianne Foster, Kathryn Grant, Lamont Johnson, Larry Gates, James Darren, Paul Picerni, Argentina Brunetti.
Comments: The American director Phil Karlson was most celebrated for films in which a single individual is up against an insidiously powerful criminal organisation (it was a theme he explored from such films as The Phenix City Story (1955) right up to Walking Tall (1973)), but its most thorough iteration – and possibly the director’s best film — was this adaptation of Simenon’s novel. The first thing that is striking about the film is how discreet it is in terms of its violence; after an early beating, Karlson concentrates on building an atmosphere of mounting dread as he approaches the final explosive shootout, the latter more graphic than most films of the era. But the suspense for the characters – and the audience – is maintained through the sense that the Mafia (not so named in the film, but clearly identified as ‘The Organisation’) are up against one of their own – albeit a reluctant opponent, an ex-accountant played by the excellent Richard Conte. Eddie Rico is a low-level employee, never involved in violence, who has retired from the mob to run a successful legit business. But he is reluctantly drawn in again when his brother Johnny is forced into hiding after his part in a gangland killing, along with another Rico brother. The naive Eddie is persuaded by the seemingly amiable Capo Sid Kubik to find his brother in order to persuade him to go into hiding, but the viewer is quickly aware that his real job is to finger his brother for elimination. The film develops a nicely Kafkaesque sense that there is no place that is safe – every move that Eddie makes, every phone call, and every hotel he stays in is quickly identified by the mob, and the final murderous result is grimly inevitable. As so often with film adaptations, changes were made to the novel – in Simenon’s book, the Rico character painfully persuades himself that the mob is right, and that summary justice must be dispensed, but this solution would not have been possible in the Hollywood of the day (the rather arbitrarily tacked-on happy ending also reveals the change to the plot). However, the steadily mounting nightmare is handled with tremendous assurance, and Conte is called upon to do far more than he customarily is – particularly in the wrenching scenes when he realises that his entire life, as well as his recent actions, has been built on compromise and betrayal. In the pantheon of films made from Simenon novels, this is one of the best. There was a television remake in 1972, entitled The Family Rico, directed by Paul Wendkos, and starring Ben Gazzara, James Farentino, Jo Van Fleet, Dane Clark and John Marley.
En Cas de Malheur
France, 1958 (In Case of Emergency).
Director: Claude Autant-Lara.
Adaptation: Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost.
Main actors: Jean Gabin, Brigitte Bardot, Edwige Feuillère, Nicole Berger, Franco Interlenghi, Madeleine Barbulée, Julien Bertheau.
Comments: En Cas de Malheur was renamed in catchpenny fashion as Love is My Profession in English-speaking countries, with the film sold very much on Bardot’s sex appeal. A somewhat stagey adaptation from the reliable if uninspired Autant-Lara, but Gabin is as impressive as ever as the middle-aged lawyer who falls for the charms of his young client. A much seen still of Bardot hitching up her skirt to her waist to entice Gabon had a notable effect on the film’s reputation.
Le Baron de l’Écluse
France, 1959 (based on a short story published in the collection Le Bateau d’Émile, 1954).
Director: Jean Delannoy.
Adaptation: Maurice Druon, Jean Delannoy and Michel Audiard.
Main actors: Jean Gabin, Micheline Presle, Blanchette Brunoy, Jean Desailly, Jacques Castelot, Jean Constantin, Aimée Mortimer.
Comments: Gentle, elegant and sophisticated French comedies were relatively rare in the 1960s, and there were many who welcomed Jean Delannoy’s Le Baron de l’Écluse with open arms. Admittedly, this Simenon-derived piece (something of a rarity in the twenty-first century) never achieves any more than a superficial grip, but it is accomplished enough to be constantly engrossing. Jean Gabin excels as a well-mannered, likeable old fraud who makes a living by trying his luck at the tables or scrounging.
Le Président
France, 1961 (The Premier).
Director: Henri Verneuil.
Adaptation: Henri Verneuil and Michel Audiard.
Main actors: Jean Gabin, Bernard Blier, Renée Faure, Alfred Adam, Louis Seigner, Henri Crémieux, Robert Vattier, Charles Cullum.
La Mort de Belle
France, 1961 (Belle).
Director: Édouard Molinaro.
Adaptation: Jean Anouilh, Édouard Molinaro and Pierre Kast (uncredited).
Main actors: Jean Desailly, Monique Mélinand, Alexandra Stewart, Jacques Monod, Yvette Etiévant, Marc Cassot.
Comments: Of particular note in this production is the collaboration with Jean Anouilh, one of France’s most prominent and original playwrights. The director Édouard Molinaro, perhaps best known (to his displeasure) for such comic outings as La Cage au Folles, shows that he has the measure of the material.
Le Bateau d’Émile
France, 1962 (based on a short story published in the collection Le Bateau d’Émile, 1954).
Director: Denys de La Patellière.
Adaptation: Denys de La Patellière, Albert Valentin and Michel Audiard.
Main actors: Annie Girardot, Lino Ventura, Pierre Brasseur, Michel Simon, Jacques Monod, Edith Scob, Joëlle Bernard.
L’Aîné des Ferchaux
France, 1963 (The First-Born).
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville.
Adaptation: Jean-Pierre Melville.
Main actors: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Charles Vanel, Michèle Mercier, Malvina Silberberg, Stefania Sandrelli, Andrex, Todd Martin.
Comments: A film version of the novel had been planned in 1961 by Jean Valère and was to star Michel Simon, Alain Delon and Romy Schneider. This version is serviceable.
Trois Chambres à Manhattan
France, 1965 (Three Bedrooms in Manhattan).
Director: Marcel Carné.
Adaptation: Marcel Carné and Jacques Sigurd.
Main actors: Annie Girardot, Maurice Ronet, Roland Lesaffre, Otto E. Hasse, Gabriele Ferzetti, Geneviève Page, Robert Hoffmann, Margaret Nolan, Virginia Lee.
Comments: For her performance, Annie Girardot received the Volpi Cup for actresses at the Venice Film Festival in 1965. Before giving her the role, Carné had also considered Simone Signoret and Jeanne Moreau. Jean Renoir had considered filming the novel in 1957 with Leslie Caron. Jean-Pierre Melville also planned to film it with Monica Vitti. A film trivia note: a very young Robert De Niro can be spotted in the background of a bar scene.
Stranger in the House
USA/UK, 1967, also known as Cop-Out (The Strangers in the House).
Director: Pierre Rouve.
Adaptation: Pierre Rouve.
Main actors: James Mason, Geraldine Chaplin, Bobby Darin, Paul Bertoya, Ian Ogilvy, Bryan Stanyon [Stanion], Pippa Steel, Clive Morton, James Hayter, Megs Jenkins, Marjie Lawrence, Moira Lister.
Comments: The selling point for this adaptation of a previously filmed Simenon novel is the presence of the always reliable James Mason as the alcoholic solicitor Sawyer, a man adrift after the fragmentation of his family. But Mason’s performance is not matched by that of his colleagues, with Geraldine Chaplin and Bobby Darin both ill at ease in their roles. Mason apart, admirers of the novel may find their time better occupied by picking up the original. This was a Dimitri De Grunwald production but distributed by the UK company Rank.
Le Chat
France, 1971 (The Cat).
Director: Pierre Granier-Deferre.
Adaptation: Pierre Granier-Deferre and Pascal Jardin.
Main actors: Jean Gabin, Simone Signoret, Annie Cordy, Jacques Rispal, Nicole Desailly, Harry-Max, André Rouyer, Carlo Nell, Yves Barsacq.
Comments: A bleak, disturbing film that captures well the atmosphere of the novel. For some inexplicable reason the names of the main characters were changed. Émile and Marguerite have become Julien and Clémence.
La Veuve Couderc
France, 1971 (Ticket of Leave).
Director: Pierre Granier-Deferre.
Adaptation: Pierre Granier-Deferre and Pascal Jardin.
Main actors: Simone Signoret, Alain Delon, Ottavia Piccolo, Jean Tissier, Monique Chaumette, Boby Lapointe.
Comments: La Veuve Couderc is Pierre Granier-Deferre’s second Simenon adaptation (after Le Chat), and he takes some liberties with the source novel, but Delon and Signoret are both impressive. A solid star vehicle of its time.
Le Train
France, 1973 (The Train).
Director: Pierre Granier-Deferre.
Adaptation: Pierre-Graniere and Pascal Jardin.
Main actors: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Romy Schneider, Régine, Maurice Biraud, Nike Arrighi, Franco Mazzieri, Serge Marquand.
Comments: For his third Simenon adaptation, Pierre Granier-Deferre tackles one of Simenon’s most unusual and powerful novels, set against the background of the German invasion of France in 1940. The wartime setting is recreated in hallucinatory detail, as it is in the novel, and Trintignant and Schneider are moving as the lovers thrown together by circumstances. The film adds a note of redemption at the end that is absent from the bleak original.
L’Horloger de Saint-Paul
France, 1974 (The Watchmaker of Everton).
Director: Bertrand Tavernier.
Adaptation: Jean Aurenche, Pierre Bost and Bertrand Tavernier.
Main actors: Philippe Noiret, Jean Rochefort, Jacques Denis, Julien Bertheau, Sylvain Rougerie, Cécile Vassort, Christine Pascal.
Comments: L’Horloger de Saint-Paul is the debut film of the director Bertrand Tavernier, and it is more conventional in form than the filmmaker’s subsequent work. Nevertheless, this approach works well in terms of realising Simenon’s novel. The book – with its minimalist plot – is a difficult one to adapt to another medium, but Philippe Noiret is as adept as ever at conveying the inner life of his character, Michel, coming to terms with the behaviour of his son. The film obtained the Prix Louis Delluc, and it is sensitive and well acted, but purists will find very little of Simenon’s sharp dialogue remaining.
Der Mörder
Germany, 1979 (The Murderer).
Director: Ottokar Runze.
Adaptation: Ottokar Runze.
Main actors: Gerhard Olschewski, Johanna Liebeneiner, Marius Müller-Westernhagen, Wolfgang Wahl, Uta Hallant.
L’Étoile du Nord
France, 1982 (The Lodger).
Director: Pierre Granier-Deferre.
Adaptation: Jean Aurenche, Michel Grisolia and Pierre Granier-Deferre.
Main actors: Simone Signoret, Philippe Noiret, Fanny Cottençon, Julie Jézéquel, Jean Rougerie, Jean-Pierre Klein, Jean-Yves Chatelais.
Les Fantômes du Chapelier
France, 1982 (The Hatter’s Ghosts).
Director: Claude Chabrol.
Adaptation: Claude Chabrol.
Main actors: Michel Serrault, Charles Aznavour, Aurore Clément, Monique Chaumette, Isabelle Sadoyan.
Comments: Of particular note here is director Claude Chabrol’s cool and compelling take on Simenon. While other directors of the French New Wave fell by the wayside, Chabrol consolidated his career longevity by making crime-oriented cinema his special preserve. Apart from noting that the music is by Matthieu Chabrol, it is worth pointing out that a song used in the film was written by Charles Aznavour, who also plays (effectively) the role of the nervous tailor, Kachoudas.
Équateur
France, 1983 (Tropic Moon).
Director: Serge Gainsbourg.
Adaptation: Serge Gainsbourg.
Main actors: Barbara Sukowa, Francis Huster, Reinhard Kolldehoff, François Dyrek, Jean Bouise, Julien Guiomar, Roland Blanche, Murray Gronwall.
Comments: Most of the filming of Équateur was done in the republic of Gabon, West Africa. The music was also provided by the director.
Monsieur Hire
France, 1989 (Mr Hire’s Engagement).
Director: Patrice Leconte.
Adaptation: Patrice Leconte and Patrick Dewolf.
Main actors: Michel Blanc, Sandrine Bonnaire, André Wilms, Luc Thuillier, Eric Bérenger, Marielle Berthon.
Comments: Monsieur Hire is a notably unusual Simenon adaptation with its rigorously observed portrait of a solitary, alienated man without friends. His neighbours distrust him, so it is no surprise when, after the murder of a woman, they consider that this unprepossessing man is responsible. With its startling plot turns, Patrice Leconte’s adaptation creates and maintains a deeply unsettling atmosphere.
Betty
France, 1992 (Betty).
Director: Claude Chabrol.
Adaptation: Claude Chabrol.
Main actors: Marie Trintignant, Stéphane Audran, Jean-François Garreaud, Yves Lambrecht, Christiane Minazzoli.
Comments: After a variety of misfires, the great French filmmaker Claude Chabrol turned again to one of his favourite writers for source material. The film is a Chabrol family affair: Thomas Chabrol is featured as an actor; the original music was by Matthieu Chabrol; and the script supervisor was Aurore Chabrol. Marie Trintignant provides a stunningly vulnerable performance as the maltreated young woman whose life has been cast adrift before she is (seemingly) rescued from a desperate existence by an enigmatic and soignée older woman played by the director’s muse – and wife – Stéphane Audran.
Chabrol, one of the leading lights of the late 1950s/early 1960s Nouvelle Vague movement, had expressed an affection for Four Days in a Lifetime/Les Quatre Jours du Pauvre Homme, which he called ‘a very beautiful book’, but never filmed it. He also noted (in Claude Chabrol: Interviews, edited by Christopher Beach): ‘Simenon is pretty fast reading – each book averages about 160 pages – so as you finish one, you immediately start reading another. I had therefore read three or four in a row. I fell upon Betty, which I had read in the past. I heard about the book again when, coincidentally, I met Marc, Simenon’s eldest son, who recommended that I read it, not knowing that I had already read it. Re-reading it, I literally fell in love with the girl. I immediately wanted to live with that girl for two or three months. That is how I decided to make the film. Next, I spoke to the producer, who was Marin Karmitz, and with whom I have a close relationship. I asked him which of my two projects – Betty or another one that interested me – he preferred. He answered: “Do the more impossible one: Betty.” I informed him that the rights were available and he asked me when I wanted to start shooting. He came up with a generous budget, and, voila!, we were on the road. It was as banal and simple as that!’
The resulting film is one of the director’s most successful. Such films as Les Biches, Que la Bête Meure and La Femme Infidèle showed the French director in Hitchcockian territory, a favourite stamping ground: murder, moral ambiguity and quiet desperation all tear apart the surfaces of the comfortable middle-class settings. With Betty, a cool and compelling take on Simenon, the director has the full measure of a remarkable novel. As with the original, we are given a penetrating psychological study, but, as so often with Chabrol, no easy answers are afforded for the questions raised. The director’s earlier adaptation of a Simenon novel, Les Fantômes du Chapelier, had underlined the similar world view of the two artists – writer and filmmaker – both of whom were more prolific in their respective outputs than most of their peers. But the principal thing they shared was a sort of cool Olympian detachment from their characters, with the audience invited to view events sub specie aeternitatis – decidedly from a distance and searching for timeless verities. Marie Trintignant gives a remarkable, fragile performance as a young woman who has sunk into a drunken stupor and appears to be taken under the wing of a mysterious older figure, Laure (played by the director’s muse and wife, Stéphane Audran). Betty confides her painful break from a stultifying bourgeois existence, and her erotic life is presented as something that has left a mark on her. This is one of the more intelligent and perceptive of Simenon film adaptations.
L’Inconnu dans la Maison
France, 1992 (The Strangers in the House).
Director: Georges Lautner.
Adaptation: Jean Lartéguy, Georges Lautner and Bernard Stora.
Main actors: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Renée Faure, Cristiana Réali, Sébastien Tavel, François Perrot, Geneviève Page, Pierre Vernier, Jean-Louis Richard, Gaston Vacchia, Muriel Belmondo.
Tsena Golovy
UK/France/Russia/Germany/Ukraine co-production, 1992 (published originally as Le Prix d’un Homme, 1980).
Director: Nikolai Ilyinsky.
Adaptation: Nikolai Ilyinsky.
Main actors: Vladimir Samoylov, Lembit Ulfsak, Valentinas Masalskis, Lyubov Polishchuk, Ivars Kalnins.
L’Ours en Peluche
France, 1994 (Teddy Bear).
Director: Jacques Deray.
Adaptation: Filippo Ascione, Jean Curtelin and Dardano Sacchetti.
Main actors: Regina Bianchi, Paolo Bonacelli, Martine Brochard, Francesca Dellera, Alain Delon, Julie du Page, Laure Killing.
Comments: Jacques Deray’s L’Ours en Peluche was released and promoted as a French film, but it sported a bumper crop of Italian talent.
Tangier Cop
UK/USA, 1997, also known as Heartbreak City (Simenon is credited, but it is unclear which book it is based on).
Director: Stephen Whittaker.
Adaptation: Julian Bond.
Main actors: Donald Sumpter, Pastora Vega, Sean Chapman, Joe Shaw, David Schofield, John Bowler, Claude Aufaure.
Los de Enfrente
Spain, 1998 (The People Opposite).
Director: Jesús Garay.
Adaptation: Jesús Garay.
Main actors: Carme Elías, Ben Gazzara, Juanjo Puigcorbé, Estelle Skornik.
En Plein Cœur
France, 1998 (In Case of Emergency).
Director: Pierre Jolivet.
Adaptation: Rose Bosch.
Main actors: Gérard Lanvin, Virginie Ledoyen, Carole Bouquet, Guillaume Canet, Aurélie Vérillon, Jean-Pierre Lorit.
Comments: The film was released in the USA as In All Innocence.
Adela
Spain, 2000 (Tropic Moon).
Director: Eduardo Mignogna.
Adaptation: Eduardo Mignogna and François-Olivier Rousseau.
Main actors: Eulàlia Ramón, Grégoire Colin, Martin Lamotte, Mario Gas, Isabel Vera, Martín Adjemián.
La Habitación Azul
Mexico/Spain, 2001 (The Blue Room).
Director: Walter Doehner.
Adaptation: Walter Doehner and Vicente Leñero.
Main actors: Juan Manuel Bernal, Patricia Llaca, Elena Anaya, Mario Iván Martínez, Margarita Sanz, Damián Alcázar.
Comments: The unhurried pace of this adaptation will not be to every taste and there is a sense that the cast (who will be familiar to viewers who have seen contemporaneous Mexico movies) give efficient rather than inspired performances. The film was sold as being unabashedly sexual, and the erotic advertising in this case was mendacious. There are, however, moments that are worthy of Simenon’s original novel.
La Maison du Canal
France/Belgium, 2003 (The House by the Canal).
Director: Alain Berliner.
Adaptation: Dominique Garnier and Alain Berliner.
Main actors: Isilde Le Besco, Corentin Lobet, Nicolas Buysse, Jean-Pierre Cassel.
Feux Rouges
France, 2004 (Red Lights).
Director: Cédric Kahn,
Adaptation: Cédric Kahn, Laurence Ferreira Barbosa and Gilles Marchand.
Main actors: Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Carole Bouquet, Vincent Deniard.
La Californie
France, 2006 (Blind Path).
Director: Jacques Fieschi.
Adaptation: Jacques Fieschi.
Main actors: Nathalie Baye, Mylène Demongeot, Radivoje Bukvic, Ludivine Sagnier, Roschdy Zem.
Monsieur Joseph
France, 2007 (The Little Man from Archangel).
Director: Olivier Langlois
Adaptation: Jacques Santamaria.
Main actors: Daniel Prévost, Julie-Marie Parmentier, Serge Riaboukine, Catherine Davenier.
Comments: The best films of Simenon’s work are those that fully appreciate the different approaches required for the novelist’s very specific takes on particular narratives. The stripped-back original, The Little Man from Archangel, is intelligently reproduced in the straightforward story of a specialist bookseller, the eponymous Monsieur Joseph. He was born in Algeria but has successfully integrated himself into French society – until, that is, his young wife goes missing and suspicion falls on him. Writing and acting are perfectly at the service of the narrative here, which examines issues of racism and a community closing against those it perceives as outsiders.
The Man from London (A Londoni Férfi)
Hungary/France/Germany, 2007 (The Man from London).
Directors: Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky.
Adaptation: Béla Tarr and László Krasznahorkai.
Main actors: Miroslav Krobot, Tilda Swinton, János Derzsi, István Lénárt.
Comment: This effort from Hungarian auteur Béla Tarr is surely the slowest and artiest Simenon adaptation ever. Whatever one’s ultimate view of the film, with its glacial pace and haunted performances, there is no denying that the grim, oppressive atmosphere of a fog-shrouded port town is conveyed in all its clamminess.
La Chambre Bleue
France, 2014 (The Blue Room).
Director: Mathieu Amalric.
Adaptation: Mathieu Amalric and Stéphanie Cléau.
Main actors: Mathieu Amalric, Léa Drucker, Stéphanie Cléau.
Comments: La Chambre Bleue is one of the most impressive of recent Simenon adaptations. The film is a triumph for its director-star Mathieu Amalric, who expertly transposes the doom-laden, claustrophobic tone of the source novel.
Les Volets Verts
France, 2022 (The Heart of a Man).
Director: Jean Becker.
Adaptation: Jean-Loup Dabadie.
Main actors: Gérard Depardieu, Fanny Ardant, Stéfi Celma, Benoît Poelvoorde.
Maigret on UK Television
The first BBC TV Maigret – now largely forgotten – was the respected actor Basil Sydney in a version of Maigret and the Dead Girl/Maigret et la Jeune Morte, under the title Maigret and the Lost Life. This adaptation appeared in a popular slot called ‘Sunday Night Theatre’ in 1959. The novel was adapted by Giles Cooper, with both directing and producing chores handled by Campbell Logan. In the days before long-form TV, Campbell’s economical film clocked in at just 75 minutes, with supporting players including Henry Oscar, future Doctor Who Patrick Troughton, Mary Merrall and Andre Van Gyseghem.
It is hardly surprising that this debut appearance of the French detective was eclipsed – and remains so – by a very successful series starring another British actor…
The Rupert Davies Series
Of the many actors who have played Inspector Jules Maigret, Simenon admirers are often intrigued as to who was the author’s own favourite. Interestingly, the detective’s creator did not choose such French actors as Jean Gabin or Pierre Renoir, who one might have expected to be a shoo-in as first choice. Instead, he selected the British actor Rupert Davies in a much loved TV incarnation that began in 1960. This televisual incarnation of Simenon’s immortal detective was so definitive that it remained ensconced as the defining image of the character for generations of viewers in the UK.
While the character actor Rupert Davies created a subtle and well-rounded version of the implacable French copper, the vehicles in which he appeared had less apparent French colour than modern viewers might expect – but the choice of locations was always spot-on (exteriors were frequently shot in Paris). And even though the language spoken was English, viewers quickly accepted the notion that we were watching something indelibly French. In the same way that Jeremy Brett’s Sherlock Holmes effectively trounced a legion of highly successful incarnations of the character, the dour but humorous Davies was impeccable casting – and those who reacquaint themselves with his performances or watch them for the first time (the series was unavailable for some considerable time before appearing on DVD in 2021) will quickly realise that Davies was a much more nuanced and interesting actor than one might think, despite sterling work in such supporting roles as the tortured priest he played in Michael Reeves’ Witchfinder General (1968). While actors as prestigious as Charles Laughton and Jean Gabin used grander, more theatrical flourishes in their versions of Maigret, Davies (and his directors) invariably eschewed a larger-than-life approach – even when, on occasion, the detective loses his temper.
The series was first transmitted in October 1960 and it ran to a respectable 52 episodes before ending in December 1963. However, such was the affection that Davies enjoyed among the British public in his portrayal of Maigret that some six years after the series finished there was also a one-off production, in February 1969, of the Simenon novel Maigret Defends Himself/Maigret Se Défend (retitled for the adaptation as Maigret at Bay), with Davies comfortably fitting back into the part. This late flowering of the character was presented as part of the BBC’s ‘Play of the Month’ series.
The earlier episodes were filmed as live studio performances, but the occasional technical insecurities hardly matter, given that the series was clearly doing justice to Simenon’s original creation right from the start. Later episodes became more technically adroit, but the considerable success of this British iteration of Simenon was clearly down to the canny casting – not just Rupert Davies in the defining acting job of his career, but a lengthy list of highly capable British supporting players. Series regulars included such accomplished actors as Ewen Solon as the reliable Sergeant Lucas, Helen Shingler in the crucial role of Madame Maigret, Neville Jason very characterful as Lapointe, and Victor Lucas as Torrence. Andrew Osborn was the executive producer, while a variety of writers and directors handled individual episodes.
Those who have sampled the other iterations of the detective on television and in his various film incarnations are unlikely to argue with the fact that Rupert Davies remains the definitive Maigret. And as a final seal of approval, Georges Simenon once handed the actor one of his novels as a present with the inscription ‘At last I have found the perfect Maigret’.
The Michael Gambon Series
The problem of having actors speak English and yet constantly refer to French surnames and street names was well handled in the much acclaimed Michael Gambon series, and many felt that this series did more justice to Simenon’s novels than any previous television versions – or, for that matter, the various French film attempts. While Gambon is a master of the large-scale theatrical effect, he is also adept at understatement and observation; these characteristics are fully utilised in the Maigret series, where the more outrageous behaviour is the province of suspects and villains, while Maigret looks coolly on. Gambon, tapping his pipe and observing everything with flickering eyes, is ideal casting.
Like many big men, Gambon is actually rather graceful, and he is particularly good at revealing the psychological state of his character – a real achievement, given that Gambon rarely has the lines (or, for that matter, any obvious physical reactions) to exteriorise what Maigret is feeling. The sense of danger that accompanies the actor is also cleverly utilised; when Gambon appeared on the London stage in Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge, the physical violence with which he seemed to threaten his fellow actors made audiences quake. What also works particularly well in this series is Maigret’s understated sympathy for people on the wrong side of the law, and often an antipathy towards his self-important superiors.
Of course, one of the pleasures of watching TV series of this vintage is catching a wealth of acting talent at an early stage in their careers. ‘Maigret and the Night Club Dancer’, for instance, features an ill-fated stripper played by a pre-Hollywood Minnie Driver, while her blowsy, chain-smoking boss is played by Brenda Blethyn. The same episode also has the now much acclaimed British actor Michael Sheen as a jittery drug addict. More regular roles were played by Jack Galloway (Janvier), James Larkin (Lapointe) and John Moffatt (Coméliau). Ciaran Madden played Madame Maigret in the first six episodes, and Barbara Flynn played her in the second six. But however adroit the supporting cast, it’s Michael Gambon we never take our eyes off.
While the production values are modest, there is always a convincing Gallic feel to the proceedings, even though Budapest stood in for Paris. Some of the episodes deal with the limitations by adopting the classic restricted settings beloved of crime writers; these include ‘The Patience of Maigret’, which takes place in an apartment building, and ‘Maigret and the Hotel Majestic’, one of the more atmospheric episodes. The series ran on UK television for two seasons in 1992 and 1993. It was produced for Granada TV by Paul Marcus, and the various directors and writers hired for the series made no missteps in the translation of Simenon’s narratives to the screen.
The Rowan Atkinson Series
The phrase is familiar: the clown who wants to play Hamlet. And while Rowan Atkinson is generally regarded as one of Britain’s most successful comic actors, eyebrows were raised when he announced that he wanted to tackle Georges Simenon’s legendary French copper. Atkinson had demonstrated a certain range with his characterisations (although directors tended to indulge him and encourage grotesquely over-the-top performances – as in the James Bond film Never Say Never Again), but many were open-minded and prepared to give his Maigret the benefit of the doubt. Until, that is, they saw his first assumption of the role. The problem with this misfiring series of adaptations was very easy to spot. Atkinson was trying very strenuously to submerge his comic persona, and accordingly presented a singularly dour Inspector Maigret, with what little humour was allowed the character falling absolutely flat. The result, of course, was a siphoning off of the understated sardonic edge that the best performers had brought to the part, from Jean Gabin to Rupert Davies and Michael Gambon. Audience response was distinctly underwhelming, and it is hardly surprising that the series was finally cancelled, despite some capable playing for the other characters.
BBC Radio Four Maigret Series
And finally, Maigret on radio rather than television. This series, first broadcast in August 1976 and with the last episode airing in August 1977, was set within the framework of Maigret recalling his cases in retirement in an imagined conversation with the author Georges Simenon. Maurice Denham played Maigret and Michael Gough played Simenon throughout the series. Despite the presence of two consummate actors, the series rarely comes to life; in fact, like many radio dramas, it sounds rather as if the script is being read by rote. There is also much condensation and the elimination of many characters and scenes, although the overall narratives remain faithful to the main plots of the novels.