It is a generally well-accepted maxim that in a Georges Simenon novel it's not the plot that's the most important. More interesting than the whodunnit are the characters, their rich psychological profiles and their complex, usually sombre, private lives. This is proven by the fact that the most interesting part of "The Cellars of the Majestic", the third final Maigret film produced in occupied France, is the part before the murder is even committed. This part follows the final day of Émilie Petersen (Suzy Prim), a once desirable French woman committed to a cold and loveless marriage with a Swedish businessman (Jean Marchat). Unable to develop a common language with her husband, she has been slowly but successfully alienated from her son (Robert Demorget) who spends his every waking moment with Mr Petersen and his suspiciously devoted secretary (Denise Bosc). Émilie's every effort to endear herself to her son is shot down, not intentionally but inevitably, due to her son's love for his father. They play cowboys and Indians together, read stories, and spend their days in joy and play, while Émilie is unable to hide her misery and pain which makes her undesirable company.
Suzy Prim does a marvellous job of essaying the poor woman, giving off the distinct feeling of someone with so much love to give but no one to give it to. The plot of the film is kickstarted when she is found murdered in the spacious cellars of the Parisian hotel Majestic and the film never manages to compensate for the loss. The rest of the cast do a solid job and Albert Préjean is as good a lead as ever, but the film irretrievably loses its heart and its most fascinating character with the death of Émilie Petersen.
The rest of the film, thus, is a fairly straightforward policier of the period. We follow the indefatigable commissaire Maigret as he interrogates the suspects over and over again until someone cracks. This is Préjean's third outing in the role after "Picpus" in which he played Maigret as a kind of Hollywood bruiser and "Cecile Is Dead" in which he seemed to be forced into a more low-key and sombre performance. Here, he finds a decent middle ground between the two but is just not as compelling as he was when he was doing his Humphrey Bogart bit. Still, he has a lot of fun teasing the truth out of the suspects and the screenplay offers him many such opportunities. Maigret here is played like a Columbo prototype. He even says at one point, "It is useful in my profession to sometimes appear dumber than you really are". There are plenty of amusing moments in which Maigret, seemingly absentmindedly, chats with the hotel cooks about seasoning and asks everyone in sight what a particular kitchen utensil is for only to then spring a devious trap on his unsuspecting "victim".
Unlike the previous two films, this one is written by Charles Spaak. His predecessor Jean-Paul Le Chanois showed great interest in examining the various aspects of the Maigret persona, but Spaak is more interested in the suspects relegating the commissaire to an observer role, allowing him to come out from the background only to poke and prod at the truth. Spaak nails the nature of Simenon's writing when he has Maigret say that "This investigation keeps turning up over-the-top, crazy people, but they all have something real about them. Some secret sorrow."
The cast of suspects includes a kitchen worker (Jacques Baumer) who may actually be the father of Émilie's child, an eccentric Dutch widow (Denise Grey) yearning for company, her Argentine lover (Jean-Jacques Delbo) who is actually a Frenchman with a fake accent, and a bathroom attendant (Gina Manès) who never turns down a drink and a good time. They're a colourful bunch and well played by a game cast of actors, but Spaak never quite manages to round any of them out. They all do have a secret sorrow, but those sorrows are never completely examined or revealed, leaving their inner depth as something that's only hinted at. Shame.
The real problem with "The Cellars of the Majestic" lies with its glacial pace and leaden-footed direction. At 99 minutes long it is the longest of the wartime Maigret films and feels interminably stretched. This is one talky script and by the third needless dialogue scene about food, you'll be praying for a musical interlude. Spaak does a good job of telling the story in a clear, straightforward manner, but he pads the script out so much that by the end I simply didn't care who killed Émilie Petersen, I just couldn't wait for the film to end. The fault also lies with director Richard Pottier who did such a good job with the first film of the series, "Picpus". Here, his direction is languid and painfully dull, consisting mostly of lengthy long shots and stagy mise-en-scene. Other than a clever scene in which we follow two hotel employees through the entirety of the kitchen in an almost unbroken shot, there is nothing remotely interesting about his direction. This is the kind of film you can watch with your eyes shut.
With serious pacing issues and a lack of an emotional centre, "The Cellars of the Majestic" is sometimes a tough movie to sit through. It has an interesting plot and several highly effective scenes, but overall it simply doesn't hold up as well as its two predecessors. Its interest is, ultimately, more historical, what with it being the final film produced by Continental, the Nazi-controlled film studio in occupied France. For this, however, you'd be more rewarded watching Bertrand Tavernier's film on the subject, "Safe Conduct". "The Cellars of the Majestic", on the other hand, offers little beyond the most basic thriller pleasures and fades in comparison with other, more entertaining Maigret films.
