Film Review
Maigret voit rouge marks the third and final attempt by French film
icon Jean Gabin to don the mantle of Georges Simenon's famous detective
Jules Maigret. Gabin's previous outings in the role - in
Maigret tend un piège
(1958) and
Maigret
et l'affaire Saint-Fiacre (1959) - had been masterfully directed
by Jean Delannoy and were widely appreciated by audiences and critics.
This time, under the direction of a somewhat less accomplished (although
still technically proficient) metteur-en-scène, Gilles Grangier,
the actor is far less impressive and, saddled with a weak script, the film
falls flat. Gabin's lacklustre and pretty monotonous (i.e. constantly
shouty) performance can be blamed primarily on Jacques Robert's hideously
bland and convoluted screenplay which has none of the coherence and atmosphere
of Simenon's original novel,
Maigret, Lognon et les Gangsters.
Compared with Maigret's earlier screen outings - the highpoint being Julien
Duvivier's definitive
La Tête
d'un homme (1933) - Grangier's plodding murder mystery pales into
insignificance.
Gilles Grangier may not have been up to the standard of Jean Delannoy (one
of the pillars of French quality cinema in the 1940s and '50s), but he was
generally well-regarded by the industry and had a knack of turning out technically
well-crafted crowdpleasers over several decades. His previous excursions
into policier territory -
Gas-oil
(1955) and
Le Désordre
et la nuit (1958), both with Gabin excelling in the lead role - are
highly thought of and are considered by some as exemplary examples of French
film noir. Not long afterwards, Gabin and Grangier notched up a popular
success with their gangster parody
Le Cave se rebiffe (1961),
now considered a classic in the
comédie policière line
Maigret voit rouge, by contrast, is one of Grangier's weaker
offerings, an all-too-complacent rehash of policier themes jumbled together
in a horribly formulaic scenario that is as lacking in logic as it is in credibility
and originality.
The weakness of the script is amplified by Grangier's apparent inability
(or unwillingness) to do anything with it other than churn out just another
mediocre crime flick, and this no doubt accounts for Gabin's way below par
performance and the equally unenthusiastic contributions from his more-than-capable
supporting cast comprising Michel Constantin, Paul Frankeur and Guy Decomble
- all fine actors totally wasted on this ramshackle production. The
female presence provided by Françoise Fabian and Paulette Dubost
is welcome, and if these two charismatic actresses had been given a little
more screen time the film may have been slightly less indigestible.
Alas, Grangier singularly fails to make the best of the resources at his
disposal and so the film ends up as nothing more than a tediously sluggish
pastiche of the most risible example of American film noir.
Deficient as
Maigret voit rouge is (in just about every department),
it still managed to attract a sizeable audience (of just over two million
spectators) at the French box office on its first release - which is probably
more a sign of the enduring popularity of Jean Gabin and the Maigret brand.
The critics were mostly unimpressed by the film but it did have some supporters.
After seeing the film, Georges Simenon confided in an interview that he
thought Gabin had done an 'amazing job' in the role of Maigret, and added:
'It bothers me a bit, because I'm only going to be able to see Maigret
in Gabin's guise.' By this time, however, Gabin had had enough
of the role and once filming was done he put down the famous pipe for good.
The next actor to assume the part on screen was Heinz Rühmann, in the
1966 European co-production
Maigret and His Greatest Case, followed
by Gino Cervi in an Italian offering,
Maigret a Pigalle, a year later.
It would be over half a century before the pipe-smoking sleuth returned to
French cinema screens, with Gérard Depardieu taking on the part (to
some acclaim) in Patrice Leconte's
Maigret (1922).
© James Travers 2023
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Gilles Grangier film:
L'Âge ingrat (1964)
Film Synopsis
One night, a man is shot dead in the busy Pigalle district of Paris, apparently
the victim of a drive-by killing. The sole witness to the crime is
Inspector Lognon, who hurries away to notify the police. When the inspector
returns a short while later, the body of the dead man has mysteriously disappeared,
presumably taken away by his killers. Commissaire Maigret is promptly
assigned to the case and it soon becomes apparent that the hitmen are American
gangsters. He duly pays a visit to the American Embassy but is advised
by a senior diplomat that he should drop the case immediately to avoid a
political incident. Naturally for a committed upholder of the law who
is more concerned with justice than politics this advice is like a red rag
to a bull. Infuriated, Maigret is more determined than ever to get
to the bottom of the case. The number plate of the car involved
in the murder leads Lognon to a sleazy bar run by an American of Sicilian
origin. It seems that the bar is a convenient hide-out for the city's
hoodlums, as Lognon soon discovers to his cost. In the course of a
long and hazardous investigation, Maigret gradually pieces together the reason
for the unexplained shooting. It seems that two American gangs have
decided to go to war in the French capital. The only question is: why?
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.