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Inspector Maigret (Albert Préjean) is rather bothered by Cécile (Santa Relli), a young woman who shows up at his office almost every day, making rather wild claims that the furniture in her apartment is moved every night, despite all doors locked. Of course, Maigret doesn't believe her one bit. But then he finds a woman decapitated in her hotel room, and the one clue she has left is a name written on her mirror, "Cécile", and suddenly Maigret figures it might have to do with the Cécile he knows, and checks out her apartment. As it turns out, Cécile lives with her disabled aunt Madame Boynet (Germaine Kerjean), whom she self-sacrificingly takes care of despite the old woman being nothing but mean to her. Cécile also has a brother, Gérard (André Reybaz), who desparately needs money for his unborn child, but rich aunty refuses to give him any. Behind her aunt's back, Cécile gives Gérard a key to the apartment, wanting him to hide and check out who's moving the furniture ... and then both Cécile and her aunt turn up dead, and of course Gérard is the chief suspect as he had both a key to the apartment and a motive. And that he tries to run from the police doesn't shed a positive light on him either. Maigret is not so sure though, and he pretty much tricks a witness, Dandurand (Jean Brochard), who happens to be one of the deceased aunt's tenants, into accompanying him to pick up Gérard, but Dandurand seizes the opportunity to make a slip, leading Maigret exactly to where the final piece of the puzzle is located to prove Dandurand the guilty party.

One of three films about Georges Simenon's character Maigret starring Albert Préjean filmed during the German occupation of France (something the movie completely blots out), this one's really a rather mediocre thriller: On one hand it's rather beautifully filmed, and the chase at the end by car, motorbike and even tandem sure shows some originality, but as the whole the thing's just over-constructed, and often key evidence just seems to pop up to drive the movie rather than being narratively justified in any way (like the clue when the decapitated woman - Cécile's sister as it turns out - has written "Cécile" on her mirror, apparently by pure chance), and even the solution seems forced. Taken as a time capsule, it's still a nice watch, just not a very good whodunnit.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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