After the theft of a priceless Van Gogh from a Paris museum, Inspector Maigret (Heinz Rühmann) travels to Switzerland where the suspect he's pursuing soon turns up dead - twice. His corpse is first found by a pair of juvenile thieves (Ulli Lommel and Edwin Noel) robbing a nightclub and then by Maigret himself in a hotel across the city. How did the body transport itself? Who did it? And, most bafflingly, why?
This is the plot of the bombastically titled "Maigret and His Greatest Case", or as it's more fittingly known in English, "Enter Inspector Maigret". Despite the grandiose title, this particular case is really nothing of the sort, proving to be a rather routine investigation conducted without much fanfare or excitement.
The screenplay by famous thriller scribe Herbert Reinecker is nominally based on Georges Simenon's "La danseuse du Gai-Moulin" but bears little resemblance to this 1930s Maigret novel. Some changes are indeed for the better, such as the removal of the frankly ridiculous spy elements which were more befitting a cheap James Bond knock-off, but mostly Reinecker's script is a plodding mish-mash of all kinds of twists and subplots. The biggest mistake Reinecker makes in adapting the Simenon novel is reducing the roles of the two juvenile thieves who are the novel's de facto leads and by far its most fascinating aspect. The psychological insight which Simenon gives us into one of them, the retiring and mostly honest Jean Chabeau is the novel's greatest asset. Reneicker, sadly, relegates them to minor roles in favour of focusing on Maigret's investigation.
Reinecker is best known for penning such TV megahits as "Der Kommissar" and "Derrick". "Enter Inspector Maigret" resembles them to a T. Namely, almost the entirety of the film consists of Maigret going from one suspect to another questioning them and trying to break their stories. Besides some attractive location shooting, there is little in Reinecker's script that is in the least cinematic and the film is bogged down by all its talkiness and lengthy, static scenes. Alfred Weidenmann's workmanlike direction doesn't help matters much and this is a movie you can just as easily watch with your eyes closed. There is no real sense of urgency or dramatic momentum, and by the halfway point I was already checking my proverbial watch.
The film was initially slated to have Rupert Davies reprise his role as Britain's favourite TV Maigret. However, he baulked upon reading the script. Wise man. Instead, we get Heinz Rühmann, once Hitler's favourite actor, a workable but largely ill-fitting replacement. At 64 years old, Rühmann is too old for the part and it shows. He sleepwalks through the film with little discernable energy, his sonorous voice hardly ever rising above a whisper. Furthermore, with his white hair, slender build, and refined demeanour, he is a picture-perfect Aryan but never convinces as a hard-working French copper. Rühmann is a likeable actor with an easy elegance but lacks the energy or presence to lead a movie which requires him to be on-screen in almost every scene.
Furthermore, Reinecker's script seems to give him some sort of a superpower since most of his deductions resemble divinations and clues and suspects simply land in his lap without him having to so much as get out of his comfortable chair. For a case that is supposed to be his greatest, you'd expect Inspector Maigret to at least break out in a sweat over it. His methods also lead him to make several baffling and genuinely illegal moves which lead him nowhere but leave us, the audience, in complete confusion.
Equally unremarkable is the rest of the cast none of whom leave much of an impression. Françoise Prévost is supposed to be a vampish seductress, yet possesses neither the sexiness nor the charm to pull the role off. It's not helpful either that she is constantly dressed in a way that wouldn't make a mother superior blush. The suspects are a varied bunch including a drug-addicted drummer (Günther Stoll), a pair of Italian brothers (Christo Neggas and Giacomo Furia) and the two aforementioned juvenile thieves, but none of them seems to relish playing these weird characters. Their performances are dull and unsatisfyingly straight-laced.
From behind the camera, we get Heinz Hölscher's blandly televisual cinematography. He sure makes Switzerland looks nice, but frequently the film looks more like a travelogue than cinema. Gretl Girinec makes some truly appalling editing choices. With some shots lasting less than a second, I was frequently confused as to what was going on. The only person who stands out is composer Erwin Halletz who provides a charming, faux-French theme song. Annoyingly, though, it is the only piece of music that is played in the entire film, over and over again. By the end, I was sick and tired of this nice melody.
"Enter Inspector Maigret" is the kind of film that I wouldn't bat an eyelid at were it a TV movie. It is bland, unremarkable, and plodding in pace, but so are most German TV thrillers. On TV, it would seem appropriate. However, as a cinematic release, it is quite underwhelming and inept. Maybe Herbert Reinecker's script had some promise but it would need a director of Alfred Vohrer's imagination and sense of humour to bring it to life. Alfred Weidenmann simply doesn't cut it with his lifeless staging and straight-laced shot choices.
