GREAT DETECTIVES & PEOPLE OF MYSTERY #28

INSPECTOR MAIGRET

 Created by Georges Simenon.  Maigret was the French equivalent of Sherlock Holmes and had become so popular in the fourth year of his literary life that his creator's attempt to retire and abandon Maigret were doomed to failure.  Maigret is 5'11", heavy-set and broad-shouldered.  His heavy features, always clean-shaven, reflect his bourgeois origin.  His suit is well-cut and made from good material, and his hands are clean and well cared for.  He usually wears a heavy overcoat with a velvet collar and a bowler hat, and he keeps his hands in his pockets constantly.  He does not resemble the popular conception of a policeman.

In Maigret's first recorded cases he is about 45.  In books four decades later he has almost reached the mandatory retirement age of 55.  He lives with his wife in a shabby but much-loved apartment on the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir and tries to go home for lunch whenever possible.  His chief recreation is taking walks with his wife after dinner or going to the movies.  A pipe smoker, he has a collection of 15 different ones at his office.  Maigret is unique and that he does not use the method of ratiocination favored by most fictional detectives - rather, he is an intuitive detective.  When investigating a crime, he places himself at the scene and establishes a daily routine.  He walks the streets, goes into cafes to drink something (usually beer or calvados) and asks numerous questions.  In the meantime, his subordinates, Inspectors Lucas, Janvier, Lapointe, and Torrence, do the background research.

As Maigret acclimates himself in his new environment, he learns much about the actors in the crime he is investigating.  Finally he discovers the guilty person, or his formidable physical presence so overwhelms the criminal that he is driven to confess.  Maigret is a great-hearted human being known for his compassion for his fellow man...his most notable characteristic is his infinite patience.

Georges Simenon (1903-1989), a Belgian mystery writer, was one of the most prolific writers of all time with more than 500 novels and short stories in his lifetime.  He was born in Liege to a middleclass family, becoming a cub reporter on the Gazette de Liege where he covered the police court beat.  One month later he had his own column and he wrote his first novel in ten days.  It was published in 1920 when he was only 17.  Tentative efforts to produce a detective hero finally resulted in a 60,000 word novel "The Strange Case of Peter the Lett" written in 1929 and featuring Maigret.  He turned out 18 more Maigret novels at the rate of one a month but became weary of the character and abandoned him in favor of more serious writings.

Ten Maigret novels were published the first year of 1931 and the series became enormously popular in France and the books were soon translated into 18 languages.  Soon the popularity spread to England and America (where stories were often published two to a volume) and film adaptations, and later TV, brought added fame and wealth to Simenon.  Simenon was able to write a book in three or four days when he was young but he later restricted his output to about a dozen books a year.  He would write a chapter a day for 8-11 days until he had a completed manuscript which he would then put away for a week, then spend two or three days "touching it up" before mailing it to his publisher.  

In the early 1940s Simenon returned to Maigret as a form of relaxation and several of his short stories were published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.  During WWII he lived in unoccupied France.  After the war he spent the next decade in the United States in New York, Arizona, Florida, California, and Connecticut.  By the 1950s his production had slowed to six novels a year with Maigret in one or two of them.  He returned to Europe in 1955 with his wife and four children.  In early 1973 Simenon announced that, owing to ill health, he was giving up writing because he wanted to live his own life, and not in the skin of his characters.  Many of his non-Maigret novels have been filmed over the years, including "Temptation Harbor" (1947), "Midnight Episode" (1950), "Paris Express" (1953), "A Life in the Balance" (1955), "The Bottom of the Bottle" (1956), "The Snow Was Black" (1956), "The Brothers Rico" (1957), "Love is My Profession" (1959), and "The Passion of Slow Fire" (1962).  Simenon was such a prolific author and wrote so many novels and short stories featuring Maigret, that I will not list them all here.  I will add, though, that I've read most of Simenon's translated works and have never been disappointed.

FILMS

"Night at the Crossroads" French, 1932.  Pierre Renoir (Maigret), brother of director Jean Renoir.  Based on "Maigret at the Crossroads" (1931) about a diamond merchant from Antwerp whose body is found in an unidentified car at a small garage near Paris.  Maigret is stalemated until he is a witness to the shooting of the murdered man's widow.

"The Yellow Dog" French, 1932.  Abel Tarride (Maigret).  Based on "Maigret and the Yellow Dog" (1931).  A wine dealer is wounded by a gunshot when returning home drunk from a local hotel.

"A Man's Neck" Pathe, 1933.  Harry Baur (Maigret).  Director: Julien Duvivier.  Based on "A Battle of Nerves" (1931).  A gambler living beyond his means, offers 10,000 francs to anyone who will kill his wealthy aunt so he can claim his inheritance.

"Picpus" Continental, 1943.  Albert Prejean (Maigret).  Director: Richard Pottier.  Based on "To Any Lengths" (1944).  Picpus is a street and subway stop where a number of murders have been committed.  Maigret tries to find the killer.

"Cecile is Dead" Continental, 1944.  Prejean.  Director: Maurice Tourneur.  Based on the novel of the same name, 1942.  A woman keeps coming to see Maigret about disturbing events in her household.  Maigret is annoyed until the woman is found dead and he realizes that she was onto something.

"Majestic Hotel Cellars" Continental, 1945.  Prejean, Suzy Prim, Denise Grey.  Director: Pottier.  Based on "Maigret and the Hotel Majestic" (1942).  A murder has been committed in the basement of the Grand Hotel Majestic, the body discovered in the staff locker rooms by a kitchen employee.  Maigret is on the case.

"The Man on the Eiffel Tower" RKO, 1949. (Filmed in Paris).  Charles Laughton (Maigret), Franchot Tone, Burgess Meredith, Robert Hutton, Jean Wallace.  Director: Meredith.  Based on "A Battle of Nerves".  Maigret is certain that a near-sighted knife-grinder is not the murderer of an elderly woman recluse.  He begins a cat-and-mouse game in the Paris streets with the real killer.

"Maigret Sets a Trap" Rank, 1958.  Jean Gabin (Maigret), Annie Girardot, Lino Ventura.  Director: Jean Delannoy.  Based on the 1955 novel.  A serial killer is targeting women in the seedy district of Montmartre.

"The Saint-Fiacre Affair" French, 1959.  Gabin, Michel Auclair.  Director: Delannoy.  Based on the novel "Maigret Goes Home" (1932).  Maigret travels to the French countryside to visit his friend the duchess of Saint-Fiacre.  She has received a letter recently stating that she will die soon.  When she dies of a heart attack a few days later, Maigret does not believe it is a coincidence.

"Maigret Sees Red" Titanus, 1963.  Gabin, Francoise Fabian.  Director: Gilles Grangier.  Based on "Maigret and the Gangsters" (1951).  A man is run down and injured by a car near the Gare du Nord.  By the time the police arrive at the scene the victim has disappeared.

"Maigret and His Greatest Case" Constantin, 1966.  Heinz Ruhmann (Maigret), Francoise Prevost.  Director: Alfred Weidenmann.  Based on "At the Gai-Moulin" (1931).  After the theft of a priceless Van Gogh from a Parisian museum, Maigret follows his chief suspect to Lausanne where the suspect is found murdered.

"Maigret" SND, 2022.  Gerard Depardieu (Maigret).  Director: Patrice Leconte.  Based on "Maigret and the Dead Girl" (1954).  The body of a young woman is found dressed in an evening gown but no clue to her identity in her purse.  Maigret sets out to find out who she was.

COMICS

Jacques Blondeau adapted the novels into a Maigret comic series 1950-1953 published in the Paris Journal.

RADIO

Maurice Denham played Maigret on the BBC in 1976.

TELEVISION

There have been numerous incarnations of Maigret on TV all around the world.  He has been portrayed by French, British, Irish, Austrian, German, Italian, Dutch, Japanese, and Russian actors.  A French TV series starred Jean Richard in 92 episodes 1967-1990.  Simenon did not like Richard's portrayal because he never took his hat off when entering a room.  Bruno Cremer played the character thereafter in 54 adaptations 1991-2005.  Italian actor Gino Cervi played Maigret in an Italian series 1964-1972 that adapted 14 novels and 2 short stories.  Boris Tenin played him on Russian TV in the 1970s.

"Maigret" BBC-TV, Rupert Davies as Maigret.  The pilot episode aired April 12, 1959 with Basil Sydney in the lead role, but he was unable to continue in the role and Davies took over.  The actual series ran October 31, 1960 - December 24, 1963, producing 52 episodes all based on the works of Simenon.  Simenon personally approved of Davies, saying he was the perfect Maigret.

"Maigret" ITV, May 21, 1988.  TV-movie.  Richard Harris (Maigret), Victoria Tennant, Patrick O'Neal, Barbara Shelley, Caroline Munro.  Intended as a pilot for a potential series, it was critically panned ending any possibility.  Inspired by the character, but not based on any specific book.

"Maigret" ITV, February 9, 1992 - April 18, 1993.  Michael Gambon (Maigret).  12 episodes, based on Simenon sources, aired in the US on PBS "Mystery!"

"Maigret" ITV, March 28, 2016 - December 24, 2017.  Rowan Atkinson (Maigret).  Four 90-minute episodes, each based on a novel.