Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

BlazeLime Strong and Moving!

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

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Rainey Dawn This film is a bit of a maze to watch - it does take some twists and turn and some of leads the police to a dead end while other paths leads to the killer. Exciting to watch.Bill Kirby (Hutton) is a married man but falls for his wife's best friend, he also has a rich aunt that is the victim of murder along with her maid. Joseph Heurtin (Meredith) is a man that set up to take the rap for the double murder. Inspector Jules Maigret (Laughton) is out to get the real killer Johann Radek (Tone). The Eiffel Tower will take center stage quite often in this film - in particular the climax of the movie.Worth watching if you like dirty, gritty crime films and a few twists that keep the movie very interesting.8/10

jdeureka How do you have "there-ness" in a movie? Where do you get a "sense of place" and why is it valuable in a film?Watch the superb "The Man on the Eiffel Tower" (1949; but which appears to have been first released in France in 1948 as "L'homme de la tour Eiffel") and you will learn.In his Westerns John Ford acquired a powerful cinematic sense of place by his use of Monument Valley. In the 1948 "Naked City" they grasped a rooty feel for city, urbanism, metropolis by filming the gritty, gripping tale of crime and punishment in & around Manhattan of that era.Here " The Man on the Eiffel Tower" accomplishes cinematic magic with Paris at a fragile yet thoroughly potent moment of its existence -- the horrifically cleared aftermath of World War Two. The city is oddly empty compared to how packed it is today by people, cars, buses, bicycles, noise, ploys and titillated tourists. But in " The Man on the Eiffel Tower" Paris as a design, as a web of shimmering streets, as a bundle of houses wrapped around a timeless, roiling river, a city of monumental yet fragile and humanized milepost buildings -- has rarely been as powerfully and insightfully shown as in "The Man on the Eiffel Tower".But I do the actors an injustice. See them. They are equally vital and articulate as the character of Paris. I have personally never seen that usually very-irritating and raspy, cynical figure of Simenon's Inspector Maigret played as well and as charming as he is done here by Charles Laughton at the height of his wise powers. Franchot Tone as the you-love-to-hate-him villain is as spooky and brilliant as he was years earlier in his less nuanced roles in "Mutiny on the Bounty" or in "Lives of a Bengal Lancer". He strikes just the right tone. Has a delicious, lean, intelligent self-destructive meanness about him; his character almost godlike in his strength. Something divined from E. A. Poe. While Burgess Meredith is as charismatic, delicate and strong, attractive and irritating as a human cockroach; you can't take your eyes off the innocent and guilty thing he is -- as, likewise, with Laughton and Tone and many of the other quality portrayals in this film.Do yourself a favor. You like classic movies? Check out "The Man on the Eiffel Tower". And you'll see why -- as the character Muley says in John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" -- "Place where folks live is them folks." Paris.Thank you.

nomoons11 When I saw this one I was stumped because it seemed familiar. You know those films where the agitator/criminal taunts the police right in front of them and they have to figure out the clues while he sits and watches? This is one of those films. There are loads of films like this but the first I thought of was "Best Seller" with James Woods. Obviously the content is different but it's the same premise....Crook thinks he's smarter than the police and we wait for the forgone conclusion.A super smart sociopath overhears a couple at a bar. The guy says he wishes his Aunt were dead so he could inherit her money. The sociopath hears this and leaves a letter telling him he'll do it...and he does. This guy has no moral compass whatsoever. He preys on weak minded people his old professor says and he is just way smarter and always a few steps ahead of everyone else. He enlists the help of a hapless guy to rob the place at the same time. Of course the guy doesn't know it's a setup and they nail him for the murder. From this we get the sociopath taunting police. They know he's done it but he makes them figure it out themselves. He doesn't count on the head detective being so dogged and persistent. His downfall? He's talks too much and he's too smart for his own good.You would think with Charles Laughton in a film you would get an outstanding performance but in this...it's an average script and an average film. Laughton's talents were not wholly wasted...but mostly they were.Franchot Tone was certainly way past his prime by this time. He looks older in this than he actually is. It's not for the films sake it's who he was. By this time a pretty heavy drinker. He reminds me a lot of Robert Taylor. All looks and no substance and in this his old 30's style of acting was far out of place in this. It's not that he did a bad job but it's that they could have found a better actor to do it. Watching this you can tell it was done on a budget so seeing him in this wasn't a surprise.The real star of this film is the color film and landscape shots of Paris. This was filmed just a few years after WWII ended and you get to see, in color, how grimy and dingy it really was. There's a scene were Franchot Tone runs on the roofs of apartments and houses and it's just really dirty. Other shots show Paris as just not a very well kept city. Things may have changed by now but in this, it's a stark reality to see what it was like after the war.Not a bad film but when you see this, my guess would be that you'll say I've seen something like this before. There are lots of these films premises' out there but I think this was one of the first where the criminal taunts the police in plain site. It's OK, but don't expect an A+ experience. Just wait for the shots of Paris in color and gaze at what it was like back in 1948. At least that's worth a look.

sgfarrell_9 I enjoyed this movie. I am a keen reader of the Maigret stories, but it didn't dawn on me that Charles Laughton was Maigret until late in the movie. Perhaps the French pronunciation of the name threw me off.The movie moved well, and I certainly enjoyed the shots of Paris right after the war. Maigret smoking his pipe and drinking his beer in the cafe gave me a good feeling. It's how I have always pictured Paris.Tone, Meredith and Laughton were all worth watching.I wish there were more movies made with Laughton playing the part of Maigret. However, Jean Garbin, the great French actor, later went on to make the role his own. He had time to refine his Maigret after many films. I saw the Garbin films over in Japan, but never here in the United states. States.