Bruno Cremer is outstanding as Maigret and the seedy nature of the Paris underground is well done and contrasts with the strange life of the better off when Maigret investigates in that setting. This "Maigret", starring Michael Gambon as the indefatigable commissaire (here reranked into a Chief Inspector), at first glance, slots quite nicely among this set were it not for one aspect, the budget allotted to the first series was clearly far smaller than the ones given to any of the other, more distinguished series.

There are two great Maigret adaptations available online or in DVDs from the 1990s, the British version done by Granada for two seasons in 1992, starring Michael Gambon, and the Dune French version that lasted from 1991 until 2005 with Bruno Cremer. The adapters do Simenon a great disservice by stripping his novels down to their bear essentials and turning them into straightforward detective stories robbing them of their unique, psychological complexity.A detective who is thoughtful, human, philosophical and deeply interested in people from all walks of life and what drives them. There are enough twists and turns in the plot lines that it is often difficult to know who the real culprit is until the end of the show.

Very French sometimes dark but love George Simeon an these movies are great if you like foreign movies It has sub titles but Bruno Cremer was the perfect Maigret. So, in conclusion, the first season is a drab-looking cheap endeavour whilst the second season is the prestige show you'd expect from a Granada-produced "Maigret" series.

To enable personalized advertising (like interest-based ads), we may share your data with our marketing and advertising partners using cookies and other technologies. The Cremer Maigret varies in quality with the directors, but he is almost always brilliant, playing his hunches and guiding his investigations with a deep psychology that truly honors the original Simenon novels. I thought this was a good show to watch with subtitles to catch the French personal and place names.

We started with the Rowan Atkinson version which is very good but this Micheal Gambon version is far more approachable and likeable. John Warnaby, for instance, ruins "Maigret on Home Ground" with his uncouth, unemotional performance of a highly complex character from the original novel. I like to check all my purchases when they arrive as it might be a while before I get to watch them in full.The disk with "Maigret goes home" and "Maigret and the Death of Harbour Master" was a duplicate of disk disk five so the set is missing those episodes. To crack his cases, he peels back the veneer of seemingly idyllic villages and neighborhoods, exposing the criminals who lurk in all levels of society. Scenes go on forever, dialogue is long-winded and exposition-heavy, and there is minimal use of locations. I don't think we watched them in French with English subtitles like we did with other movies, but he's a French detective and there are a lot of French words and sites that are helpful to the students. The 4 episodes of Rowan Atkinson's "Maigret" total almost 350 minutes, making each episode almost an hour and a half.