Maigret

I have just finished the first five episodes from the new Network Video release. Since I am an American and have never seen these episodes on-air, my opinion may differ from theirs.

As this new DVD format is the one most likely to be encountered by a modern viewer, I will address that directly. The video quality of the episodes is comparable to perhaps the earliest "I Love Lucy" episodes you may have seen, or very early "Super Man" shows. Unlike them, the exterior shots are fine and they seem to have actually taken Rupert across the Channel to film them (unlike Roger Moore in "The Saint"). But the interiors are a different story. There were sometimes issues with the video transfer process and it shows in the interiors (especially Episode 1). The interior sets look very much like something put together week by week. The standing sets for his office are a bit more detailed. The sound is like a stage production recorded. Even for 1960 some of the acting is very stage-like, with unrealistic speech and exaggerated mannerisms.

So if you can get past the late 50's production quality Rupert Davies and Ewen Solon are fine and the stories seem as effective to me as modern Maigret renditions of them (I've never read the books). Most of the supporting actors are good enough.

All 52 episodes are available, so there's quite a lot to enjoy if this is your cup of tea. But I must warn you that the production values are not even vaguely comparable to a show like 1958's "Peter Gunn", much less more modern versions.

I don't care if its b&w & old. This will transport you to France -- Paris and the seaside and the countryside. I am so glad this series is available. It has an amazing cast of characters that you will believe are all French. I watch a lot of "foreign" films and have a higher tolerance for subtitles than most but it is a joy not to have to struggle with subtitles for once and still get the full flavor of another culture. Btw, I had no idea there were so many evil old ladies in France. Love the cafes, the food, the wine and Maigret's constant attempts to keep his pipe going. I found the first 3 seasons on Kino. Hoping the 4th will show up.

I've just seen the first of this long 'lost' (not shown anyway) series, which was hugely popular when it appeared in the 60s, and is just being revived by the UK's Talking Pictures channel (old films and TV).

So, January 2022, but I see the review just posted by 'Sir-Oblong' (?!) makes no allowances for the usual production standards of that distant era. Maybe he hasn't seen perhaps 'Z Cars' - much loved but with similar creaky scenery!! Or the infamous Crossroads, with wobbly sets and even more wobbly acting, of necessity as doing many shows in an extreme hurry, on a tiny budget! Of course the Gambon series looks better, they had a vastly better budget, and the technical advances greatly helped with the picture quality. That series had shows that ran for longer (90 mins or 2 hours, from fading memory) so the stories could be developed in a better way, but the Davies version was actually shot in Paris (for the externals) so has that extra benefit.

The criticism about "claustrophobic sets" is also strange, the Gambon & Atkinson series both had some small sets, reflecting the stories as Simenon wrote them (a small room is a small room, a small bar is a small bar!). Their later date of production meant they looked rather better, having had more time and money spent! NB The Gambon series was 2 runs of 6 shows, and I think Atkinson stopped after just 3 (a relief for those fans pained at his lack of resemblance to the written Maigret). I look forward to more of the Davies reruns!

Added some weeks later:- And having mentioned the (inaccurate) Fiztbong-Obolongs critical review, I've now seen far more episodes, and the supporting acting was greatly improved as we get into series 3. His criticism of Helen Shingler is especially daft, as she plays Madame Maigret just as directed, and what a wife would have been back then, especially of a leading policeman. The review by Richard Hull is far more accurate about the Simenon books, and how the atmosphere and detection methods are layered, and pretty hard to replicate on screen - especially in these original one hour shows.

I believe the Michael Gambon Maigret was shot in Budapest because Paris didn't look like Paris any more! There are no such problems here. This is the Paris of the books, and Rupert Davies is Maigret exactly as Simenon conceived him. It was this authenticity that made me buy it as soon as it came out.

Thus the scenery and atmosphere are perfect. The stories, inevitably, are variable, but I'd call them good to excellent. The acting is solid rather than anything better - clearly there were no funds for retakes and there is usually a fluffed line or two in every episode.

The weak spot is the technical quality. Episode One is an outlier, in that it is so poor it is difficult to watch. From Episode Two it is very much better, but still not great. But then, would it have been any better for the TV viewer of the time, watching a 405 line transmission on an 18 inch set?

Anyway I'm delighted to have bought this wonderful time capsule.

Nowadays TV drama is mostly the same as cinema drama, just with a smaller budget, and apart from news and current affairs, TV stations just play pre-recorded items. How different it was when this series was made. I'm not sure if the programmes went out live, but even if they didn't, they were made "as if" live, since editing early video tape was extremely difficult and expensive. So what you get with these shows is similar to what you get when you go to a live theatre performance: a company of actors working together in real time to present a story. Fabulous! And, yes, there are going to be the odd little errors, just as in the theatre. The only difference from live theatre is that, in this series, we have the addition of wonderfully evocative filmed sequences made in Paris in an era when it looked extremely Parisian. It's exciting. I don't mind at all about the small and rather cheap sets.