It's a classic mystery set-up: Maigret is asked to help an old friend who has received a life-threatening letter, he goes back to the village where he grew up to meet her but fails to prevent her death, so now he has to uncover the culprit. His past relationship with the victim gives this picture a depth of feeling, and the passage of time gives it a sense of melancholy. The film also captures the remote village atmosphere well, but - like its urban predecessor, "Maigret Sets A Trap" - suffers from an excess of talk and plod. Nonetheless, the final 15 minutes, where Maigret gathers all the suspects in (quite literally) a round dinner table and pins the finger of guilt to him! No, to him! Wait - it's him after all! Are well-done and recall the more famous Hercule Poirot mysteries. Gabin is an ideal Maigret, but this film has no Annie Girardot to compete with him for the acting honors. **1/2 out of 4.

This is yet another chance to compare real films made by real filmmakers to the dross churned out by the new waveleteers. This well-crafted example albeit it something of a bread-and-butter title appeared in the same year as Godard's Brainless, a title widely accepted amongst the pseud-Academic axis as the start of the nouvelle vague. Fortunately 1959 was long on films of this calibre and short on dross like Brainless. Dbmonteuil has already pointed out that Delannoy was the favourite whipping-boy of the no-talent Cahiers crew and this is an opportunity to see just how fine a craftsman he was. It was Gabin's second outing as Jules Maigret and there would be one more before he called time. Although it falls a tad short of Maigret Sets A Trap, the initial outing there is still much to commend this follow up not lest Delannoy's sure-footed direction which coaxes some fine ensemble playing from his actors. Check it out.

Yes, Delannoy was kicked around quite a bit by those young Cahiers critics, some of whom went on to make stodgy films themselves (if I have to watch another soporific Chabrol "thriller", I may give up movies altogether). Delannoy was a solid craftsman who gave us two blond deities in Jean Marais and Madeleine Sologne (wonderful L'Eternel retour),and the gorgeous, although sightless blue eyes of Michele Morgan in La symphonie pastorale. That picture opened up new vistas of sexuality for me.

But a craftsman can only do so much. There is a lack of focus here, the result of some bad casting. Some of the acting is atrocious: Robert Hirsch as the art expert Sabatier, one of the prime suspects, is always on the verge of hysterics. Michel Vitold as the priest gives off guilty vibes, although he hasn't done anything. Only Valentine Tessier and Michel Auclair, playing mother and son, rise to the occasion. Tessier and Gabin have a delightful scene together at the opening, talking about the old days in their little town. Auclair is especially good as the corrupt heir to a declining fortune; he looks like he stepped out of a Rococo painting.