Maigret Sets a Trap (Maigret tend un piège) (1958)

Dir. Jean Delannoy. Inspector Maigret roams the backstreets of Paris hunting for a ‘Jack the Ripper’ style serial killer. Based on the 1955 Georges Simenon novel of the same name, and the first of many adaptations. The same novel would later be adapted with other well-known actors in the title role, including Rupert Davies in 1962, Michael Gambon in 1992, Bruno Cremer in 1992, and most recently Rowan Atkinson in 2016. In this French film, we have Jean Gabin as Maigret. Gabin perhaps best known the charming Lieutenant Maréchal in La Grande Illusion (1937). The mystery at the centre of Maigret Sets a Trap is an uncomfortable and unpleasant psychosexual attempted morality tale that may have felt daring sixty years ago but has not aged well.