I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Jean Gabin plays Inspector Maigret here in a role that I find him quite matched to. I always figured him as fitting kindly roles after watching him play gangsters so often (the French have had an ambivalent, occasionally adulatory disposition towards gangsters judging from their domestic movie output, which perhaps makes these roles for Gabin less of a clang for them - perhaps this is similar to our English views of Robin Hood and Dick Turpin!).I came to this movie via an interest in director Jean Delannoy. Even though it appears to be a very commercial project he's helming on behalf of a studio, rather than a more obviously auteur-driven piece such as "L'Eternel Retour", there are perhaps significant parallels with his other work. Delannoy, I believe, was preoccupied with matters Oedipal, definitely by family conflict of the dysfunctional variety, and you can see this, for example, in "La Symphonie Pastorale", where a father and son both fall in love with the same woman, also in "L'Eternel Retour" with the damaged Achille, spoiled by his parents, and in "Macao, enfer de jeu", where Ying Tchaï's entire life is concealed from the daughter he dotes on.Whilst Maigret Sets a Trap is about, "la chasse au tigre", or a tiger hunt, with the Marais killer being the tiger, there's also a story of inter-generational abuse that's powerful and fascinating. I felt I learnt several lessons whilst watching the movie, particularly about the power of jealousy to provoke extravagant paranoias (under which lie quite delicate realities) and how the truth is often more human than you think, also about temperance (Maigret makes a joke about being unable to obtain attractive partners), and appearances. I'm fascinated about private versus public realities, ever since seeing Paul Klee's beautiful series of "Der Komiker" ("The Comedian") etchings as a teenager. These show men wearing masks that look like faces, and you can see the real, quite different, faces behind. In this movie there's a huge divide between persona and the repressed and crippled personalities behind them.Today's audiences may find that Jean Desailly (Marcel Maurin) overacts, but I think Delannoy is far cleverer than is often given credit for, and provides his own commentary on the style of acting in the movie, when Maigret is at pains to instruct a con on how to act to the press.I think I fell in love with this movie, because I was never really sure where it was going, and there's some dirty thoughts to be had if you get inside the paranoia. There's also not many movies where you have such a human detective, who even conducts a late night interview with his undone belt surrounding a bulging belly. The ending is quite iconic in its own way, and rounded off a charming watch.

Despite his occasional appearance in the films of major directors like Max Ophuls, Jacques Becker and Jean Renoir, from the 1950s onwards Jean Gabin seemed content to rely simply on his effortlessly charismatic screen persona and elevate an apparently interminable succession of old-fashioned potboilers which, while undeniably enjoyable in themselves, now seem like a regrettable waste of this monumental French film star. Nevertheless, I try not to miss any of his films when they crop up on Italian or French Cable TV channels and, for what it's worth, I've always been on the look-out for at least two of his late 50s films - Claude Autant-Lara's LOVE IS MY PROFESSION (1958; with Brigitte Bardot) and the film under review here.Anyway, Gabin is perfectly cast as the world-weary Police Inspector who is pondering retirement when the re-emergence of an old nemesis - a serial-killer who stabs lonely brunettes coming home late at night - taunts him back into action with a supremely clever plan to trap the killer, hence the film's title. The film also features in a supporting role the actor who, for all intents and purposes, replaced Gabin in French filmgoers' minds as the brooding action hero, Lino Ventura, but it's Annie Girardot (as a neglected but ultimately self-sacrificing wife) and Jean Desailly (as her impotent, mother-fixated artist husband) who leave the best impression in the crowded supporting cast.Jean Gabin would go on to appear as Inspector Maigret in 2 subsequent films - MAIGRET ET L' AFFAIRE SAINT-FIACRE (1959; which I've caught up with a couple of years ago) and MAIGRET VOIS ROUGE (1963) - and work a further 5 times with director Delannoy (including the afore-mentioned second Maigret film); interestingly enough, Delannoy himself would abandon his own artistic aspirations shown earlier in two major French films of the 1940s - L'ETERNEL RETOUR (1943) and LA SYMPHONIE PASTORALE (1946) - to concentrate on modest genre offerings (of which MAIGRET SETS A TRAP is the best-known and probably best overall as well) for the rest of his career.Inspector Maigret is celebrated French pulp writer Georges Simenon's most famous literary creation and had previously been portrayed on the screen by Pierre Renoir in one of his brother Jean's most elusive films, NIGHT AT THE CROSSROADS (1932), and also by the great Charles Laughton in Burgess Meredith's intriguing directorial outing, THE MAN IN THE EIFFEL TOWER (1950) - neither of which I've watched alas - and would go on to be impersonated by a variety of formidable character actors among them Rupert Davies, Gino Cervi and Michael Gambon for TV!

Jean Delannoy stands as one of the best (if not simply the best)Simenon adapters.In the short space of two years he made two gems ,while the nouvelle vague was insulting him ,and these two gems should not be missed:"Maigret tend un piège" and "Maigret et l'affaire Saint-Fiacre" (1959),both absorbing,both featuring a top-notch cast,both packing a real wallop.The first one is an urban psychological thriller,the second one takes place in the country,in the castle of old aristocrats."Maigret tend un piège" is at first sight a serial killer story ,but Simenon is too subtle a writer to be content with that.And I'm sure that Jean Delannoy had seen Julien Duvivier's sensational film noir "voici le temps des assassins "(1956):not only he casts Jean Gabin as Maigret,Gabin who was the hero of Duvivier's movie,but he also uses Lucienne Bogaert ,who was his ex-wife in the same movie.Bogaert portrayed a drug addict abominable criminal in 1956;in Delannoy's film,she is an over possessive mother,proud of his son who could have been a sculptor,a painter,an artist,a genius,had they not thwarted his outstanding gifts.SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS This son is a very complex character masterfully played by Jean Desailly,who probably found his lifetime part here:he's so intense that he will leave you ill-at-ease.He cries,screams ,begs,almost never stops twitching,and his tragic strength is absolutely incredible."Be a man!!!" Gabin shouts ,whereas he's an impotent little boy ,under his mother's thumb.From the very beginning,-and what I write is not really a spoiler- we know he's the killer,Simenon did not write a whodunit,he's more interested in his poor man's psychology whom his mother and his wife -an excellent Annie Girardot- will try to save ,stopping at nothing for that.The film begins slowly ,but when it hits its stride,after about thirty minutes ,it grabs you till the very end ,with more and more verbal violence.No,Jean Delannoy is not the mediocre director the nouvelle vague used to despise.

Maigret is looking after a women killer in Paris. It's the occasion to see some places from the old Paris. Jean Gabin is really fit for the role of Maigret. Hopefully it's not a movie where the whole action takes place in a police office. In that film you can also see a young beginner named Lino Ventura.