Maigret (TV Series) A Man of Quality (1960) User Reviews

A Man of Quality

[Prismark10 · 7/10 · 20 February 2022]

Inspector Maigret investigates the death of Emile Gallet.

A travelling commercial salesman found shot and stabbed to death in the little town of Sancere.

Gallet's wife is a haughty royalist. Their son works in a bank but he seems to have a mistress in Sancere.

Maigret finds out that Gallet has not worked as a salesman for some years. In fact he was making money in a scam.

A witness saw Gallet meeting another man with aristocratic ways. Tiburce de St Hilaire the day before he was found dead.

There is a lot packed in an hour here. A mysterious murder, the victim lived some kind of a double life. Sgt Lucas gets shot by an unknown but clever killer.

There is blackmail and a hidden past as well which is linked to Indochina.

It is an episode that shows how smart Maigret can be. Something the hapless local Sergeant can learn from. He thought the killer was a travelling acrobat from the circus.

Look out for character actors Maurice Denham, Jean Anderson, Peter Barkworth and Wilfrid Brambell with a bizarre accent.

Just about plausible

[Sir_Oblong_Fitzoblong · 7/10 · 24 February 2022]

After the truly appalling flushing-down-the-lavatory-of-the-licence-fee that was The Liberty Bar, any 50 minutes of television meeting the most modest broadcasting standards is a welcome contrast and this episode does qualify.

The plot is Simenon trying to do a bit of a Christie with a technical element to the solution of the murder but he lack's the Queen of Crime's skill in such matters and plausibility is strained somewhat.

There is just about enough light and shade thanks to Ewen Solon's reliable portrayal of the jovial Lucas but there is too much of the amateur comic cuts about some of the minor characters, in some cases due to performance issues, in others because of a lack in the script. Charles Lloyd Pack plainly had the ability to make something wittier of the hotel proprietor, if he had the lines whereas Wilfred Bramble shows himself to be the one-trick pony of Albert Steptoe as a supposedly Jewish newspaper seller who can't make his mind up whether he comes from Poland or Limerick and makes a pretty ham-fisted mess of both acts.

As usual in the early episodes a lot rests on Davies to carry the whole thing but it is not a bad one.