Leofwine_draca THE MAN ON THE EIFFEL TOWER is an adaptation of one of Georges Simenon's detective novels featuring the Poirot-alike detective, Maigret. It features a headlining Charles Laughton playing Maigret himself, but oddly Laughton is the weakest part of the movie and can do nothing with the part. He just sort of wanders around and simpers without doing anything in the way of crime fighting.The murder story is a little better, once it gets going. It sees a wealthy aunt murdered and the finger of suspicion falling on a down-on-his-luck knife grinder, played by Burgess Meredith who was old even at this early stage of his career. Meredith does his best to elude capture by the police, but Maigret suspects another man, played by the delightfully urbane Franchot Tone, is responsible.If I'm honest, THE MAN ON THE EIFFEL TOWER isn't really up to much as a detective story. The pace is plodding, the story underdeveloped, and the characters largely unlikeable. Where it succeeds is in the visuals, which are frequently stunning. This was an early colour production that brings a teeming, bustling Paris to life and is sure to have location photography at all of the major places, bringing them to life. Even better, the film features a series of tense chase sequences which frequently use high-rise locales to their advantage. The Eiffel Tower-set climax is the best remembered of the bunch, but I preferred a rooftop chase that takes place halfway through and is like an early Parkour scene. David Belle, eat your heart out!

trevorwomble I found this film a real mixed bag. Firstly there is the jaunting use of colour. It has been well documented that the negative is long lost and only two 35mm film prints of varying quality are known to have survived (the DVD is made from the best elements combined from both these prints). The film print is still quite scratched and dark in places and could probably do with a proper digital restoration but at least it is watchable, if not as easy on the eye as technicolor is.I'm not going to go into plot details as others have already done that but I did find the film starts off quite well before the plot starts to sag quite badly in the middle and gets overly complicated, although it does pick up again towards the end when Maigret's plan starts to come together leading to the action packed finale. Also, despite receiving a major credit, Wilfrid Hyde White is in the film for one scene only so its more of a cameo than anything else.I found the dialogue to be hugely artificial at times making it sound like bad acting rather than decent actors trying to say some rather wooden lines. Yet Maigret himself is quite wonderfully acted by Charles Laughton who plays the role just right. Whereas some of the other characters seem very contrived, Maigret has a wonderful sense of humanity and believability as a middle aged, rather rotund detective who is actually smarter than he lets on. In fact Laughton's interpretation is not a million miles away from Michael Gambon's portrayal for television 40 years later. His sense of calm and intelligence, patiently waiting for his arrogant suspect to make a mistake, is reminiscent of Peter Ustinov's unruffled Hercule Poirot.A final word should go to the production values. Shot on the streets of Paris this film is an interesting view of how post war Paris looked, showing both the beauty of the city and the damage from the war that had finished 4 years earlier. Burgess Meredith was asked to take over directing the film three days into filming and to be fair he does a decent job, keeping the camera moving when it needs to and ensuring the audience know this is not filmed on a backlot in Hollywood. The sound is also beautifully clear too, a hard job when you consider the amount of location work involved.All in all this film falls short of being a genuine classic due to a muddled and flabby script, bad dialogue (in places) and some overacting by some of the supporting cast. However its still has a lot going for it and is well worth a watch for Laughtons performance alone.

elli-roushanzamir I was disappointed at the criticisms that this film inspired. So much of it is correct but not true. Admittedly I'm a huge fan of Georges Simenon in general & his Maigret novels in particular. The book A Man's Head, upon which this film is based, is one of the more intriguing, challenging and existential of the Maigret series. There are others; see The Tavern by the Seine. The film is similarly evocative: of Paris, 1949, of a weird mystery, of extremely odd characters--and some ordinary characters that involve themselves in extraordinary circumstance. The 1st time I watched the DVD I was distracted by the disintegrated production value, but not enough to refrain from recommending it to friends, to watching it repeatedly, to buy it as a b'day gift for a valued, long-term friend. I can only hope that the series of what are basically negative reviews won't discourage others from the pleasure of watching this film. And listed amongst the credits is indeed The City of Paris.

captainzip I wonder what this film would have been like had Burgess Meredith not taken over directing from Irving Allen. I showed my Super 8 print of it to a packed house of two recently - to rediscover that it is a gripping detective mystery moving at a rapid and entertaining pace.While not flawless (dialogue is delivered in a very perfunctory and unimaginative way occasionally), it is well worth a peek with some great Paris location work, some initial intrigue over who had actually committed murder, and a battle of nerves between Inspector Maigret and the manic-depressive Johann Radek character.The scene where the Tzigane band intrude on the café conversation just too much is fun.But, if for no other reason, it should be seen for its gripping, death-defying climactic suicidal climb on the Eiffel Tower and Burgess Meredith's fall onto the power cables.I'd love to see the restored Ansco-color version which showed at the National Film Theatre a year or two ago.