Tonight's Movie: Maigret Sees Red (1963) - A Kino Lorber Blu-ray Review

I've returned from spending most of two weeks at back-to-back film festivals, and coverage of both fests will be coming as soon as possible.

First, though, a couple of film reviews!

Regular readers know that I've fallen under the spell of French film noir and crime films, mostly thanks to an ongoing series of releases by Kino Lorber Studio Classics.

Kino Lorber's latest release in this genre is MAIGRET SEES RED (1963), known in France as MAIGRET VOIT ROUGE.

The film is a police procedural starring Jean Gabin as Police Commissioner Jules Maigret. It's actually the third film in a series, and Kino Lorber will release all three films in June as part of a three-film Maigret collection. MAIGRET SETS A TRAP (1958) and MAIGRET AND THE ST. FIACRE CASE (1959) will be boxed with MAIGRET SEES RED.

I won't know until I watch those first two films if I missed anything significant ahead of viewing MAIGRET SEES RED, but it didn't feel like it. I enjoyed the film from the first moments, as a car drives through a gleaming black-and-white Paris, accompanied by a jazzy score. (The composers were Michel Legrand and Francis Lemarque.)

As the movie begins, a group of American mobsters gun down a man on a Paris sidewalk -- but when the police arrive, the body is gone. This strange happening is compounded when police inspector Longnon (Guy Decomble) is briefly kidnapped and beaten to tell what he knows of the incident.

Commissioner Maigret (Gabin) is soon heading the case, aided by Longnon, Torrence (Marcel Bozzufi), and other hardworking members of the police force. As the body count grows, Maigret gradually uncovers a plot by the mobsters to kill an important witness.

There may be nothing particularly remarkable about this film, directed by Gabin's longtime collaborator Gilles Grangier, but I found it a very pleasing 87 minutes.

In my review of TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI (1954) I mused on what makes Jean Gabin so interesting to watch, saying in part "...he commands attention. There's a certain confidence to his performances...including the sense that his characters know a great deal."

That was certainly the case here. This quiet, burly man, passing middle age, should ostensibly not engender such confidence in the viewer, but he certainly does. It's clear from the way he carries himself and speaks to others that he has a wealth of knowledge and knows what he's doing.

I love the way he's gently encouraging with Lognon, who is embarrassed by having given the bad guys information as they started to knock out his teeth. In contrast, one of my favorite scenes comes late in the film when he's being tailed by the gangsters; he calmly heads into a business and calls his station, barking out orders for the plan he's instantly put together.

There are some really interesting odds and ends in the film, such as the bowling alley patronized by Americans and a cash register which pops up a coded signal on multiple occasions. I also enjoyed the glimpses of the era; when Maigret visits the American embassy, there's a portrait of JFK in the background.

The American mobster angle means there's quite a bit of English in the film, including interesting multi-lingual exchanges between Maigret and his old friend, diplomat Harry McDonald (Paul Carpenter), another unusual element.

I found this film, which on one level is a fairly ordinary police procedural, completely enjoyable, with a very "noir" tone. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will watch it again, and I'm very much looking forward to the other two films being available in the near future.

The Blu-ray print is a 4K restoration from Studiocanal. It looks terrific, showing off the black and white cinematography of Louis Page, and sound quality is good as well.

This is a Special Edition with a cardboard slipcase. Extras consist of a trailer; a gallery of trailers for nine other films available from Kino Lorber; and a commentary track by Simon Abrams.

Thanks to Kino Lorber for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray.

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