Maigret: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		1.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

Maigret: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 5, 2023

Mention small screen adaptations of Georges Simenon's famous character of Maigret , and chances are visions of the late, great Michael Gambon will magically appear for many who were watching television back in the eighties. Younger, ostensibly hipper viewers may think of none other than Rowan Atkinson, whose own take on Maigret appeared just a few years ago. But there have actually been several other takes on the Simenon properties through the years, including two French produced series, Les enquêtes du commissaire Maigret and Maigret, both of which actually ran much longer than either the Gambon or the Atkinson version(s), or even this 1960 - 1963 British production starring Rupert Davies, which itself outran the Gambon version, as the occasionally curmudgeonly but still avuncular police inspector. As impressive as many of the actors who have portrayed Maigret through the years have been (including such stalwarts as Jean Gabin in Maigret Sees Red, released around the same time this series was airing), Davies received a blessing from none other than Georges Simenon himself, who described the actor as "perfect" for the role. The actual series shows its age both in less fulsome production budgets and some occasionally clunky writing, but the biggest drawback may be some unavoidable technical issues which are discussed in more detail in the video section, below.

One of the kind of interesting things about this particular iteration of Maigret is that is wisely decides to rely almost exclusively on Georges Simenon's own source novels, rather than coming up with anything "new" and supposedly "improved", as has been the case at least occasionally with regard to newer adaptations of, say, Agatha Christie on both the small and large screens. I've always wondered why people go to the trouble of first optioning any given work, let alone a series of books, and then pretty much jettison them in favor of other, ostensibly shinier, objects, but this first season (and/or series, in British parlance) of Maigret adapts a baker's dozen of Simenon properties. While there's one notable omission in the cast of characters, the teleplays, while showing obvious signs of constricted funds for things like opulent sets and/or or hordes of extras (there are neither of these, to be clear), stick reasonably close to the originals, at least the ones that I've personally read and have some familiarity with.

The lack of tons of money to throw at the project is observable from the get go, as the first real episode (a 1959 pilot featuring Basil Sydney as Maigret is not included here, perhaps lost to the ravages of time and tide), an adaptation of Simenon's 1951 Inspector Maigret and the Strangled Stripper, finds a supposedly upscale nightclub looking decidedly downtrodden and not very full of customers. Occasional interstitial establishing shots attempt to locate Maigret and his cohort of police acolytes in and around Paris, but the bulk of this series is resolutely set bound, and in fact at times slightly claustrophobic feeling.

Davies is in fact pretty much perfect as Maigret, per Simenon's own assessment, and as a character study the series may provide more lasting enjoyment than some of the actual mysteries.

Maigret: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Maigret: Season 1 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber with AVC encoded 1080p transfers in 1.33:1. The restoration featurette listed in the supplements section includes the verbiage below, but was evidently originally a French produced affair (hence some "lost in translation" errors in the following transcription):

This series exists as tele recordings, mainly 35mm, with the image being derived from 405 line video. Due to the film recording process and the resolution of modern scanning, the interlaced video fields of the source produce unsightly combing on movement. To mask this problem, the line structure has been broken up via digital filtering. The CRT displays utilised in the original tele recording process suffered from a number of defects. These defects produced a pattern of static dirt across the image and this has been concealed where possible to further improve viewability. Some sections or whole episodes exhibited jitter and unsteadiness requiring further processing. The original exterior filmed inserts are not known to exist having not been cut back into the masters except on the 1969 Play of the Month. This means only the tele recorded result is available, suffering from severe interlace issues due to being out of picture phase with the original video. Although a specialist computer program might be able (to) unpick the original line structure, such an undertaking would have been beyond the scope of this project. Therefore, digital processing was used to mask the problem, although some double imaging is unavoidable. Despite the limitations of the materials we believe that overall the work carried (out) improves the viewing experience of this prestige and highly regarded television series.

Additionally, a four page episode guide included in the keepcase offers a slightly different take on the restoration:

Maigret has been graded and processed from existing high definition transfers of the 35mm telerecordings. The nature of the transfers meant that the image derived from the original 405 line recordings had severe combing (visible line structure on movement) so digital filtering was used to mask this problem, and although some restoration was carried out involving both automated and manual processes, the pictures still display faults like dirt, scratches, and recorded picture break up (amongst other issues). Unfortunately, none of the original loation footage is known to exist with the exception of the final Play of the Month production from 1969, Maigret at Bay.

To cut to the chase, this is simply a situation where admittedly heroic restoration efforts just can't overcome some of the inherent deficiencies of the source elements. One assumes "tele recordings" refers to kinescopes, but even by those standards, this can be a daunting viewing experience at times, with, despite an ostensibly progressive presentation, almost Dali-esque swirls of interlaced "information" pulsating through the frame (see screenshot 4 for just one example). In relatively stationary moments where the camera is also bolted to the ground (so to speak), things can actually improve to at least semi-decent standards (see screenshot 3). Lateral pans introduce almost comical combing artifacts at times despite the obviously heartfelt work that was put into rescuing these from the days of bygone technologies. Contrast is also highly variable at times, but on the whole fairs better than might be expected. This is one case where the smaller the screen, the better this will probably look (which may not be saying much even then).

Maigret: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Maigret: Season 1 features DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono tracks that have weathered the intervening decades a bit better than the video side of things. There's still not much dynamic range, an overall boxy sound, and even occasional little blips like pops or crackle, but on the whole dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly. Optional English subtitles are available.

Maigret: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The State of Maigret - Restoration Notes (HD; 2:27) gives an overview of the technical challenges these episodes offered. I've reproduced the text in the video section, above.

Note: The lone supplement in this collection can be found on Disc One of this three disc set.

Packaging features a slipcover.

Maigret: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The mysteries are occasionally engaging in this first season of Maigret, but it's probably the performances of Rupert Davies, Helen Shingler as Madame Maigret, Ewen Solon as Sgt. Lucas and Neville Jason as Lapointe that provide the most consistent interest. Video "is what it is" and I highly recommend those interest to parse through the screenshots I've uploaded to accompany this review. The technical limitations of this presentation keep me from being able to honestly recommend it, but Simenon completists may still find this of some value, however "iffy".