Maigret (1992)

Watchseries; This is a splendid series which I have recently obtained on DVD. Memories of when I first watched it seventeen years ago have come flooding back. But so did the irritation over one particular episode - Series 1 Ep 4. Maigret returns to his home village on All Souls Day (2nd November) a day when a priest is allowed to offer three Masses. Here the priest for a requiem Mass is dressed not in black vestments (appropriate for Masses of the dead in the 1950's) but in green vestments and not vestments for a priest but those of a deacon. When so much authenticity is captured in a production it was a pity that woeful ignorance of simple ecclesiastical matters was allowed to have such free rein. If those concerned in production are unsure about church customs then it is usually easy to find out for certain. But, all in all, a great series - delightful to watch and I give it 8 out of 10.

This is a splendid series which I have recently obtained on DVD. Memories of when I first watched it seventeen years ago have come flooding back. But so did the irritation over one particular episode - Series 1 Ep 4. Maigret returns to his home village on All Souls Day (2nd November) a day when a priest is allowed to offer three Masses. Here the priest for a requiem Mass is dressed not in black vestments (appropriate for Masses of the dead in the 1950's) but in green vestments and not vestments for a priest but those of a deacon. When so much authenticity is captured in a production it was a pity that woeful ignorance of simple ecclesiastical matters was allowed to have such free rein. If those concerned in production are unsure about church customs then it is usually easy to find out for certain. But, all in all, a great series - delightful to watch and I give it 8 out of 10.

Maigret watchseries. Yes the sets and costumes are great/historically appropriate, and yes Michael Gambon is a good actor, BUT the BRITISHNESS of this 1992 series, is almost too much...very very strong English regional accents are at odds with the supposed French setting. The acting is actually a bit plodding too, despite the good actors. Perhaps this is a faulty script/direction, but I can't see how the 1992 series got so popular..perhaps it was the BRits watching other Brits and who cares about authenticity of accent or pacing of plot line/direction. Have seen Gambon in many movies, series and even he cannot completely 'save' this from being a bit underwhelming.,..and a bit boring...

The difference between the first series of Granda's "Maigret" and the second series is vast. In fact, it is the difference between quality television and a forgettable yet valiant attempt. In the 1990s, several prestigious adaptations of famous detective novels were made by various ITV outlets. Granada had started the trend with their outstanding Sherlock Holmes series starring Jeremy Brett, LWT followed it up with their equally definitive Poirot with David Suchet, while Central gave us my personal favourite, the John Thaw Morse series, and the less iconic but nonetheless highly entertaining Cadfael with Derek Jacobi in the lead. This "Maigret", starring Michael Gambon as the indefatigable commissaire (here reranked into a Chief Inspector), at first glance, slots quite nicely among this set were it not for one aspect, the budget allotted to the first series was clearly far smaller than the ones given to any of the other, more distinguished series.

Why this was, I don't know, but the results are more than evident on screen. Like "Cadfael", the series was shot in Hungary rather than in France, but whereas "Cadfael" made wonderfully atmospheric use of its medieval locations, the first season of "Maigret" seems almost shy to show theirs off. Instead, the series got locked into a series of drab-looking interiors, cheaply designed by Chris Wilkinson and unimaginatively shot by directors James Cellan Jones and John Glenister. However, it is cinematographer Elemér Ragályi who nails the final coffin into the visual identity of the first season with his ugly, overlit and frequently blown-out photography. Such a technically faulty and artistically poor job I have never seen outside of amateur productions. The first season pales in comparison not only with its contemporaries on British television ("Cadfael", "Poirot", "Morse" etc.) but also with the cinematic Bruno Cremer "Maigret" which was airing on French TV at the time.

The scripts for this first season tended to be plodding and dull and seemingly written for the old studio-bound production style. Scenes go on forever, dialogue is long-winded and exposition-heavy, and there is minimal use of locations. The adapters do Simenon a great disservice by stripping his novels down to their bear essentials and turning them into straightforward detective stories robbing them of their unique, psychological complexity. It doesn't help that the guest cast is mainly comprised of B-list supporting players who presumably are cheap to hire and willing to fly out to Budapest for a week. In fact, the casting formula for the first season appears to have been as follows. Have one "big name" per episode (Cheryl Campbell, Christopher Benjamin, Struan Rodger, Joanna David, Jim Norton, Jonathan Adams, Ann Mitchell), a supporting cast of minor character actors, and fill out the bit parts with Hungarian actors. This method, however, backfires badly. The "big names" are merely recognisable faces and none of them does more than adequate jobs. Of the minor character actors a few do quite well (Margery Whithers and Leonie Mellinger) but most range from utterly bland to shockingly awful. John Warnaby, for instance, ruins "Maigret on Home Ground" with his uncouth, unemotional performance of a highly complex character from the original novel. Meanwhile, the Hungarian actors are awfully dubbed with ill-fitting voices and you get such laughable moments as when a featherweight Fr

I'd never heard of this series until last month. It's currently being shown on a British TV channel.

It's absolutely excellent, a real tonic.

We used to watch this in French in high school! I absolutely loved the days when we'd walk in and be told we got to watch Maigret. They're kinda old, but way interesting, and we almost never knew what was going to happen. The episodes aren't predictable, which makes it all the more interesting. I hate when you know what's going to happen before it does, but I don't recall an instance where that was the case. It's totally worth checking out if you like a good mystery. And they really are great for French classes. I don't think we watched them in French with English subtitles like we did with other movies, but he's a French detective and there are a lot of French words and sites that are helpful to the students. We also used to write summaries of the stories entirely in French, so if you're a teacher, it's a great combination of comprehension and writing. If you decide you like these, or are looking for something similar, try watching Poirot. It's a series based on the stories by Agatha Christie. Same type of thing, but I'm partial to Maigret myself!

Having read most of the short and long Maigret stories and seen a number of Bruno Cremer's version (French with subtitles), I had looked forward to this version if only because it did not require me to read subtitles. But I was very disappointed.

Essentially, the BBC has transformed Maigret into a hard-boiled British detective with none of the subtlety of Georges Simenon's French detective.

Of course they take liberties with the stories, and this is normal and to be expected with TV / movie dramatizations of books, but the dialog is very disappointing and not at all the Maigret of Simenon.

It's not terrible, but Michael Gambon's Maigret is not good either. Better to obtain and watch the Bruno Cremer version, even though it requires you know French or read subtitles.