User Reviews

Saw this on Talking Pictures channel (UK - old films and TV) who are running all 4 of the original Maigret series (BBC, early 60s). This is series 4, and the overall quality has gradually improved (looking back with hindsight -- it was quite a cult series at the time!).

This one has Maigret in a world of high-class hotels, inhabited by millionaires who have lackeys to do all their menial tasks. They also have some women who use them for monetary support . . .a key feature in this story.

One of those millionaires is found dead in the bath, but it seems he had help, and didn't just fall?! He's part of a group of ultra-wealthy men, and assorted wives and ex-wives (the victim was just about to clock up ex-wife number 3 as he expired, though it turned out he had a heart condition anyway). Maigret gets to fly to the Riviera, and then Switzerland (lots of location film, evidence of the bigger budget!) chasing after one ex-wife, who'd been in the victim's hotel, but 'did a bunk' on hearing the news.

He gradually works out how the various millionaires, wives and girl-friends have been inter-reacting, and then discovers a key point, that the victim's trusted aide has been consoling discarded wives and girlfriends for many years (all part of the service?).

This episode works pretty well, though there were still some budget limitations, a scene on a luxury yacht had the sea going up and down, not the yacht, and a luxury hotel had very thin walls (another key plot point!).

I'll also deal with occasional reviewer Sir-Obbolongo-Fittzybollongs and yet another daft comment, that of "gruesome am-dram histrionics" by a key character (an ex-wife). She was by then experienced in TV, went on to do a stint in Corrie, and was in The Bill & Z-Cars on 5 separate occasions for each, (plus many other parts in a wide range of TV shows) - she had to show a histrionic, overprivileged and semi-drunk woman, playing to Maigret but up against a 'mirror wall', so was presumably doing that scene exactly as directed?

This episode takes on a tricky task in the technical constraints of 1963 TV - a story set in the world of super-rich financiers and socialites. It tries to convey an atmosphere of luxury, excitement, and tragedy but doesn't really succeed.

Of course the budget would make it difficult to portray hedonistic luxury but, given the quite extensive use (for the time) of location filming by series 4, one might expect this to be employed in a more creative way to give a better sense of atmosphere than we are offered.

Shots of airports and jets taking off are deployed to excite the 1963 audience's fantasies about life in the Onassis set but they mainly serve to pad out a thin plot and, as so often, things rest pretty much on Rupert Davies's indisputable innate appeal and Ewen Solon's ever-excellent portrayal of the witty and ebullient Lucas

Unfortunately, in an attempt to make up for the atmospheric deficiency, we are treated, in the case of one of the main characters, to a return of the gruesome am-dram attempts at histrionics of several earlier episodes though the lovely and rather more professional Moira Redmond does offer some compensation.

The lifestyle of the rich and famous is certainly another world. A fact repeated several times by Maigret and Lucas.

There is extensive location footage of Maigret in Paris and library footage of the South of France.

David Ward is a much married business mogul who is found dad in his bath at the hotel he was residing in.

At the same evening, in another hotel room. The much married Countess Palmieri, Ward's mistress took an overdose of pills but survived.

Maigret quickly deduces that Ward was murdered. However he needs to track down the Countess who has done a flit.

Maigret discovers that the well heeled were sharing lovers as well as business contacts.

It might as well be La Ronde set as a murder mystery. An engaging mystery but I do think some over hysterical acting did not help matters. Unfortunately it seems to be a feature of some of the BBC Maigret stories. So it might have been down to the producers or directors.