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A priceless Van Gogh is stolen from a museum in Paris - and Inspector Maigret (Heinz Rühmann) insists on hushing the whole affair up and exhibiting a fake in the museum to lure the thief out into the open. The next day, a Mr. Holloway (Günther Ungeheuer), a rich art collector, turns up in Maigret's office to let him know about the fake Van Gogh and tell him he's been offered the real one to buy. Maigret promises Holloway police protection, but Holloway slips his protectors and takes off to Lausanne, Switzerland. Maigret, his assistant Caselle (Gerd Vespermann), and insurance agent Labas (Eddi Arent) manage to pick up his trail though and follow him, all the way to a night club, where he's quick to become the favourite customer of hostess Simone (Francoise Prévost) and leaves a considerable lump of money with the club band's drummer Robin (Günther Stoll). After closing time, youngsters René (Ulli Lommel) and Jean (Edwin Nobel) sneak back into the club to ampty the register - but stumble upon the corpse of Holloway and make a hasty escape. The next morning, Maigret and company find Holloway's corpse - in his hotel room. Maigret thinks it's a good idea to hush things up and has the body put into a laundry box to be left in a public park for others to find - just to lure the killer out into the open. In the meantime, Maigret investigates the owner of the night club, Genaro (Giacomo Furia), and soon finds out his brother Adriano (Christo Neggas) has actually stolen the Van Gogh, which Genaro has hidden in the night club, not so much with criminal intent but to help his brother, and he's more than happy to hand the painting over to Maigret. Also he finds out that drummer Robin has told Holloway about the painting and has volunteered hleping him get his hands on it. Somehow Maigret also finds out about youngsters René and Jean, and how René is actually the son of rich industrialist Delfosse (Alexander Kerst) and the lover of Simone - and ultimately, Maigret figures that when René and Jean found Holloway's body, Holloway only pretended to be dead, but René figured with Holloway dead he might as well raid his hotel room - but was then caught by Holloway and killed him out of reflex ...

With the krimi genre being all the rage in Germany in the 1960s, thanks in large parts to the German Edgar Wallace adaptations, it was pretty much only a matter of time before Georges Simenon's Maigret would get its German (or more accurately Austrian) adaptation, even scripted by regular Edgar Wallace-writer Herbert Reinecker and co-starring another Edgar Wallace-regular, Eddi Arent. For the lead, the producers tried to get Rupert Davies, who had already played the role in the BBC series Maigret from 1960 to 1963, but who ultimately turned down the role, leaving it to popular German actor Heinz Rühmann, who had already left his mark on the krimi genre with a pair of Father Brown movies.

Now taken by its own merits, this hardly is a classic whodunnit, but within the krimi genre as it was in the 1960s, not at all a bad movie, as while the plot might seem somewhat forced and convoluted at times, it takes a less stylized and artificial approach than many films of its ilk, but doesn't force the realism-angle either, going for a more natural style instead, and Heinz Rühmann works very well as the film's calm centerpiece. What really doesn't work too well here is Herbert Reinecker sometimes terribly stilted dialogue and his repeated falling back on cardboard characters for supporting roles. Sure, even this has its certain charm, but the film sure would have profited from a little more believability.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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