Saw this on the Talking Pictures channel, UK older films and TV. They showed the entire collection of the Rupert Davies Maigret episodes (BBC, early 60s) and are now showing this quirky, slow-paced French one (90s) with subtitles.
The atmosphere is very French, lots of slow thoughtful looks, and Maigret wastes few words, which fits with the books, as does the actor's rather lumbering figure.
No real complaints re the lead portrayal, except that in the books he does crack the odd joke, and has some repartee with faithful R-H man Lucas. In this however, Lucas hardly ever appears, not even mentioned in most episodes, which is STRANGE - I cannot recall a book without him featuring in some way!
This particular episode is also most unusual, we hear that Insp Lognon, not that well liked by colleagues, has been shot, but in Helsinki? Nobody knows what he's doing there, Mme Lognon doesn't know, but guesses he was trying to solve a case without Maigret interfering to take the credit?!
Here I could add that I don't recall any Maigret book with Finland in the plot, but I haven't quite read them all. The other TV series seen in the UK, with Rupert Davies, Michael Gambon, and latterly Rowan Atkinson in the lead role, never did this story.
The plot has Maigret in Helsinki, with a Finnish detective to assist and translate (lucky they had one speaking fluent French?!). He soon discovers that Lognon had been in the company of a French prostitute - who has disappeared. But they weren't sleeping together, according to forensics. Attention soon focuses on a Swedish art dealer, though he's at home in many countries (& also speaks good French - what luck!) and it emerges from a witness that Lognon had been watching him, and his French wife, played by the delicious (well, she was in the early 90s!) Elizabeth Bourgine, familiar to British viewers after 10 years in the Death in Paradise crime series.
Maigret's questions get some evasive answers from the couple, and a call back to Janvier in the office reveals that Lognon and the prostitute have some history. She had been in Nice, and so it seems had been the couple, where they married.
The wife has a lover, who could he be? And Maigret starts taking more interest in the dealer's extensive - and very expensive - collection of pictures.
The prostitute is found, she's now running away from the couple, who'd hired her to keep a Russian artist 'company'. What might he have been up to in the attic?
The criminals are safely bagged, including one who is wanted in several countries. The prostitute can go back to France (she'd been deported) after Maigret had rewarded her info with that deal. And Lognon may well return (when recovered) a hero at last, for breaking open a big case (albeit he spent the whole episode in a coma)!
Helsinki looks great, and this episode doesn't need location shooting in a rather grubby Prague, which doubles for Paris in the other episodes.
The atmosphere is very French, lots of slow thoughtful looks, and Maigret wastes few words, which fits with the books, as does the actor's rather lumbering figure.
No real complaints re the lead portrayal, except that in the books he does crack the odd joke, and has some repartee with faithful R-H man Lucas. In this however, Lucas hardly ever appears, not even mentioned in most episodes, which is STRANGE - I cannot recall a book without him featuring in some way!
This particular episode is also most unusual, we hear that Insp Lognon, not that well liked by colleagues, has been shot, but in Helsinki? Nobody knows what he's doing there, Mme Lognon doesn't know, but guesses he was trying to solve a case without Maigret interfering to take the credit?!
Here I could add that I don't recall any Maigret book with Finland in the plot, but I haven't quite read them all. The other TV series seen in the UK, with Rupert Davies, Michael Gambon, and latterly Rowan Atkinson in the lead role, never did this story.
The plot has Maigret in Helsinki, with a Finnish detective to assist and translate (lucky they had one speaking fluent French?!). He soon discovers that Lognon had been in the company of a French prostitute - who has disappeared. But they weren't sleeping together, according to forensics. Attention soon focuses on a Swedish art dealer, though he's at home in many countries (& also speaks good French - what luck!) and it emerges from a witness that Lognon had been watching him, and his French wife, played by the delicious (well, she was in the early 90s!) Elizabeth Bourgine, familiar to British viewers after 10 years in the Death in Paradise crime series.
Maigret's questions get some evasive answers from the couple, and a call back to Janvier in the office reveals that Lognon and the prostitute have some history. She had been in Nice, and so it seems had been the couple, where they married.
The wife has a lover, who could he be? And Maigret starts taking more interest in the dealer's extensive - and very expensive - collection of pictures.
The prostitute is found, she's now running away from the couple, who'd hired her to keep a Russian artist 'company'. What might he have been up to in the attic?
The criminals are safely bagged, including one who is wanted in several countries. The prostitute can go back to France (she'd been deported) after Maigret had rewarded her info with that deal. And Lognon may well return (when recovered) a hero at last, for breaking open a big case (albeit he spent the whole episode in a coma)!
Helsinki looks great, and this episode doesn't need location shooting in a rather grubby Prague, which doubles for Paris in the other episodes.
