Les Caves du Majestic (1945) - film review

Madame Petersen, the wife of a wealthy industrialist, is murdered at the Majestic Hotel and Inspector Maigret is called in to investigate.  Suspicion falls on the dead woman’s one-time secret lover, Arthur Donge.  Maigret is doubtful but then he discovers that before she died Madame Petersen was being blackmailed by someone with the initials "A.D." Clearly, it’s an open and shut case. Or is it?

Albert Préjean stars as the famed Parisian detective created by Georges Simenon in this, the third and last of the Maigret films made by Continental Films during the Nazi Occupation of France.  Noticeably different in tone to the preceding two films (Picpus and Cécile est morte), Les Caves du Majestic is more successful at evoking the famous atmosphere of Simenon’s novels and is probably the best of the three films.

The dapper Préjean is still too much the conventional matinee idol to be convincing as the pipe-smoking sleuth, but his enormous popularity at the time ensured the film was a success.

The film’s screenwriter, Charles Spaak, was arrested by the German police before his work on the film was completed.  Unable to work in prison, he was permitted to work on the script in the studio whilst the film was being made.

© James Travers 2003

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