Ann Way Season: Maigret - Maigret's Little Joke
Another TV series which has never appeared on this blog, namely Maigret, the 1959 to 1963 BBC series based on the novels by Georges Simenon. Unusually for British black and white TV of this era the series survives complete and has been commercially released. In the manner of the time it combines some very atmospheric location filming in France and some very obvious sets (filmed in Britain). The episodes are written by different writers, and each is based on a different Simenon novel. According to Wikipedia a lot of trouble was taken to get genuine French props for the show and it's honestly hugely atmospheric and has given me the strongest smoking cravings I have had since I gave up 13 years ago!
The plot of this episode is exactly the classic sort of Simenon mystery, involving the death of a doctor's wife and revelations that both the doctors in the practice were 'at it' and possibly some hanky panky with digitalis. There are sort of two aspects to the plot because on the one hand the murder is being investigated by another police officer and Maigret is off sick, apparently after being injured by a criminal. He becomes interested in this case and those involved start confiding in him, since he's still just around in Paris. He's not supposed to be involved but starts inputting hints by sending anonymous notes in to the police. Honestly this is one of the wildest things about this: it's far from a straightforward investigation because of this aspect of Maigret's utter unprofessionalism and inability to leave it. I'm not going to give away the solution because it isn't necessary for this blog post. The episode is literally the last episode of the series, broadcast in 1963.
I was a bot worried at the start that Ann Way's character would turn out to be miniscule after I saw her being interviewed the first time. She plays the concierge in the building where the doctor whose wife has been killed lives. She claims not to have seen anyone pass her office at a certain time, which is clearly not true. Very quickly everyone gets on to the fact that she is almost blind, but has learned to recognise the different residents by their footstep so that she can still recognise them. Nonetheless she very naughtily tells the police she didn't *see* anyone at that time when she couldn't have seen anyone at all because she couldn't see. There is a wonderful scene where Maigret bribes her with a banknote and she holds it very close to her face, apparently smelling it, and then listens to the sound it makes when she rustles it, clearly someone who can't see it clearly or at all. Way is also marvellous in the role because she's clearly an absolute harridan.
I just have one criticism which is that I see this play was based on the 1957 Simenon novel Maigret S'Amuse. In the novel Maigret has told everyone that he has gone away on holiday which really remaining in Paris without telling anyone, so the anonymous notes would seem much more anonymous. Even though he talks about going on holiday in this version, everyone knows he hasn't gone anywhere, which I think spoils some of the point of the story, which is that his duplicity mirrors the duplicity of pretty well everyone involved in the story (including Ann Way's concierge character), but in his case good comes out of it because he helps solve the murder. It would have been much improved by him appearing not to be in Paris but being there really.
My favourite bit is the French street scenes, especially the cars. This show is obviously well worth watching but not if you don't want to psychically smell pipe smoke.
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