Saw this on the Talking Pictures channel (UK, old films and TV). They had previously shown the 1960s series (50+ episodes, BBC, B&W) featuring Rupert Davies, a generally acclaimed Maigret.
We've also seen the excellent 12 episodes (2 series) that ITV did (90s) with Michael Gambon as Maigret (terrific portrayal) and the less successful later efforts with Rowan Atkinson in the lead.
This Cremer version is of course French, with subtitles, but they are not too wordy, so fairly easy to follow. Also very French, lots of atmosphere, meaningful looks, thoughtful silences.
I see some reviews refer to how faithful this Maigret is to the books, a ludicrous statement in one respect, as Lucas, his main assistant in all the books I've seen, has almost completely disappeared!
I haven't liked all the episodes so far of this Cremer version, but some have been WONDERFUL. SADLY, this one is one of the worst of the entire series, taking 2 hours to tell the same story that the old BBC version did in one.
The other present reviews refer to the plot, and as usual Whalen is quite accurate in those details, except that he seems overly taken by the style the story was delivered in?
The story as portrayed was frankly quite ludicrous, starts with Maigret in Brussels for an awards ceremony, then he gets accosted quite easily by both halves of a married couple, each frightened the other will kill them? Yeah, right.
He gradually finds out why they are having problems, basically they've drifted apart, and should separate, but apparently he cannot advise this? The wife's sister (widowed, but not old and in fact rather attractive) lives with them as a kind of unpaid housekeeper, she resents her status, and rather likes the husband. Meanwhile, wifey is much more impressed with her handsome boss, who is putting her in charge of a planned new Paris shop.
So, simple advice would be to tell the wife to go and enjoy Paris, leave hubby to stay with his trains shop and the sister-in-law. Simple.
But instead we get bogged down -- and frankly bored to tears, with Maigret talking to all parties and getting 2 lesser lights of the Brussels police to follow the participants. On the way, the director gives us some silly jokes based on one of the detectives getting his name muddled up by all who talk to him. Laugh -- I nearly started.
Eventually there is a death, who did it? Well, not many characters to choose from, and by the end of almost 2 hours, I was beyond caring. It was well enough done, the players did their best with a poor script, but this was way down the list of this Cremer version. Style, yes. In this case, substance was crucially missing!!