In Paris, an old lady and her maid are brutally stabbed. The actual killer shifts the blame on some poverty-stricken nitwit, who gets arrested pretty quickly. Canny police inspector Maigret realizes that the said nitwit is but doubtfully equipped to cut up soup vegetables...
I recently wrote a few reviews for Simenon adaptations, so I thought : one for the road... Now this is an interesting but very uneven movie. It often feels as though five or six people were arguing about the nature of the work : should it become a comedy, a tragedy, a mystery thriller, a police procedural, a hard-hitting exploration of the mental landscape of a sociopath ? Moreover, Charles Laughton seems woefully miscast as Maigret.
There are also a number of story strands which don't make much sense. For instance, the two women victims have been killed by an intelligent man capable of careful plotting. The murders are supposed to result from a burglary gone awry. Yet nothing in the household has been stolen - as the police easily discovers. Quoi ?! You're not going to tell me that the killer couldn't have thrown five or six objects into a burlap sack...
In fairness to "The Man on the Eiffel Tower" it needs to be added that the passage of time has not been entirely kind to some of the elements. For instance, there's a police expert, a graphologist, who looks at a random letter and spins a whole story about the origins, ideas and character traits of the author. Anno 2019 genuine experts would be far more reticent. There's another beauty where a learned medical doctor discusses a student : the student has an evil side to his nature, but then, he suffers from manic depression...
However, the movie is not without charm or interest. The many images of post-war Paris are enchanting and actor Franchot Tone gives a fine performance as a clever criminal far too clever for his own good. The climax involves some of the most spectacular stuntwork ever caught on film. Try to find a copy with good image quality - if such a copy still exists...
I recently wrote a few reviews for Simenon adaptations, so I thought : one for the road... Now this is an interesting but very uneven movie. It often feels as though five or six people were arguing about the nature of the work : should it become a comedy, a tragedy, a mystery thriller, a police procedural, a hard-hitting exploration of the mental landscape of a sociopath ? Moreover, Charles Laughton seems woefully miscast as Maigret.
There are also a number of story strands which don't make much sense. For instance, the two women victims have been killed by an intelligent man capable of careful plotting. The murders are supposed to result from a burglary gone awry. Yet nothing in the household has been stolen - as the police easily discovers. Quoi ?! You're not going to tell me that the killer couldn't have thrown five or six objects into a burlap sack...
In fairness to "The Man on the Eiffel Tower" it needs to be added that the passage of time has not been entirely kind to some of the elements. For instance, there's a police expert, a graphologist, who looks at a random letter and spins a whole story about the origins, ideas and character traits of the author. Anno 2019 genuine experts would be far more reticent. There's another beauty where a learned medical doctor discusses a student : the student has an evil side to his nature, but then, he suffers from manic depression...
However, the movie is not without charm or interest. The many images of post-war Paris are enchanting and actor Franchot Tone gives a fine performance as a clever criminal far too clever for his own good. The climax involves some of the most spectacular stuntwork ever caught on film. Try to find a copy with good image quality - if such a copy still exists...