Arguably Jean Tarride set a precedent when he directed his father Abel, who took the role of Maigret in this fairly dismal movie. It's probably just as well that he didn't aspire to be a John Huston (who, of course, memorably directed his own father, Walter, in both The Maltese Falcon, uncredited, and The Treasure of Sierra Madre). There have now been literally hundreds of both cinema and TV movies featuring Maigret but the very first two occurred in the same year, 1932, and this was one of them. Perhaps fortunately the other was La Nuit de carrefour directed by Jean Renoir because had this been the only one the franchise may well have died there and then. Tarride begins reasonably well with some atmospheric shots but a 'stage' drunk who turns out, sure enough, to be the first victim of a shadowy killer, sets the tone which is consistently lowered until it is more a question of enduring rather than enjoying what Tarride puts in front of us. Of interest only as a curio.
6 Reviews
Worth a look
tpaans12 June 2021
Not quite as bad as all that. It's a mess, for sure, but it does have a handful of very effective scenes and some quite atmospheric shots. Tarride père makes a decent (older, in the book he's still quite young) Comissaire Maigret - God knows there have been way worse ones in later years. And Le Vigan is deliciously weird.
Clumsy, dull
bob99810 June 2014
I admit the only reason I watched this curiosity was the presence of Robert Le Vigan as Michoux, one of the main characters. This is another in a long line of weirdo characters that Le Vigan played throughout the 1930's. The drunk in Les bas-fonds, the sinister teacher in Le petit Chose and many more are wonderful to watch today.
The story stumbles to its conclusion in only 68 minutes, which may be a blessing. The actor Tarride is really wooden, can hardly speak his lines understandably and is very tiresome to watch. Rosine Derean has some charm as the servant girl Emma. The sound track has an annoying whistle running through it. For Maigret completists only, all others should abstain.
The story stumbles to its conclusion in only 68 minutes, which may be a blessing. The actor Tarride is really wooden, can hardly speak his lines understandably and is very tiresome to watch. Rosine Derean has some charm as the servant girl Emma. The sound track has an annoying whistle running through it. For Maigret completists only, all others should abstain.
a very bad start for Simenon in movie
happytrigger-64-39051725 October 2016
Le Chien Jaune is one of the two first adaptation from a Simenon novel, the other one being la Nuit du Carrefour by Jean Renoir directing his brother Pierre as Maigret (a dark noir movie with a lost reel).
Le Chien Jaune is directed by Jean Tarride with his father Abel as Maigret. It is a very confused story, really not interesting, and it gets even more confused when you see Abel Tarride playing Maigret. But what happened during the shooting? Abel Tarride seems totally sick, he speaks with a faded voice, in some sequences, he even doesn't answer, lowers his head to the ground and then cut to another sequence. Did he eat some bad oysters? Abel Tarride is completely gone away, out of the movie, it would be interesting to read some witnesses about the shooting. And I cannot compare him with his other parts, I don't remember him in any movie.
So the plot is beyond comprehension and the actor's performance playing the legendary Maigret is one of the worst ever in motion picture. You can only find a little interest thanks to Robert le Vigan as an earthy doctor. If you like Le Vigan, do not miss him in Les Mutinés de l'Elseneur directed by Pierre Chenal, it just got released on french DVD and he is outstanding.
Le Chien Jaune can also be interesting for breton people for authentic views of old Concarneau, motion picture has also this unintentional documentary view.
Le Chien Jaune is directed by Jean Tarride with his father Abel as Maigret. It is a very confused story, really not interesting, and it gets even more confused when you see Abel Tarride playing Maigret. But what happened during the shooting? Abel Tarride seems totally sick, he speaks with a faded voice, in some sequences, he even doesn't answer, lowers his head to the ground and then cut to another sequence. Did he eat some bad oysters? Abel Tarride is completely gone away, out of the movie, it would be interesting to read some witnesses about the shooting. And I cannot compare him with his other parts, I don't remember him in any movie.
So the plot is beyond comprehension and the actor's performance playing the legendary Maigret is one of the worst ever in motion picture. You can only find a little interest thanks to Robert le Vigan as an earthy doctor. If you like Le Vigan, do not miss him in Les Mutinés de l'Elseneur directed by Pierre Chenal, it just got released on french DVD and he is outstanding.
Le Chien Jaune can also be interesting for breton people for authentic views of old Concarneau, motion picture has also this unintentional documentary view.
Very slow;....
dbdumonteil15 February 2006
Another "Commissaire Maigret investigates" ,another Georges Simenon's book transferred to the screen.This one takes place in a chocolate box Britanny complete with folk costumes .The story is so slow it becomes dull and I must confess I had to watch the movie twice to be able to find some interest in the plot....which is not much anyway.Four men are in jeopardy for someone in the shadow wants to get rid of them ,one after the other.A subject that was much better applied on Lacombe's "le Dernier des Six" (from Simenon's compatriot ,Steeman). Whodunit is not really Simenon's forte and his characters are not strong enough to sustain interest throughout.
A cheap and listless bore
mdjedovic5 August 2021
The small port town of Concarneau is gripped in fear. A loveable drunk has been shot in the streets in a seemingly motiveless crime. His three best friends, the local doctor (Robert Le Vigan), a wannabe aristocrat (Jacques Henley), and a yellow-pages journalist (Fred Marche) are informed they will be next through the medium of an anonymous note attached to a brick. And thus the cycle of murders continues, each one heralded by the appearance of the titular ugly, large, yellow dog. The famous Parisian police inspector Maigret (Abel Tarride) is called to investigate.
"The Yellow Dog" is a fairly pedestrian retread of one of Georges Simenon's lesser novels the problem of which lies not so much in the intriguing premise as in the ludicrous turns the plot takes. Director Jean Tarride's dullish adaptation does little to fix this, opting instead to merely follow the action with as little invention as possible.
The plot also isn't helped by the fact that Tarride seems to have no feeling for pace. This 69-minute movie is tiresomely padded out with such insignificant distractions as frequent non-sequiturs with a travelling salesman (Jean Gobet), the grating comedic routines of Maigret's buffoon assistant (Robert Lepers), and infuriatingly drawn-out sequences of people walking in, out and through rooms. Now, bad comic relief and poor pacing are part-and-parcel of early talkies but the extent to which Tarride's film suffers from these ailments is astounding. This is in part also because the scenes which are actually important to the plot tend to be so short and develop so quickly that you often miss their importance. For instance, the discovery of the third murder occurs in an almost silent scene that passes so quickly that I was confused in the finale about why the character who was murdered was no longer in the picture. It was only my memory of the novel that helped me keep track of what was going on.
Most of the film takes place in cheaply built, overlit sets foregoing any possibility of atmosphere or stylishness. The main set of the film, the town inn, looks uncannily like a sitcom set. The walls even wobble when the doors are closed. All this is amateurishly shot by Nikolai Toporkoff. The framing in this film is truly awful to the extent that more often than not the centre of the screen is empty while all the action seems to take place on the edges or sometimes even beyond them. All while the studio lights blaze reflecting in windows and ruining the mood of the story.
In the centre of all this is Abel Tarride as Maigret, a poor leading man, sluggish and listless and consistently bored. Rarely does he so much as raise his voice, let alone emote. In fact, in most of his scenes, he looks like he's looking for an empty chair to sit in. This is curious, as at moments, a light seems to shine from behind Tarride's eyes and great intelligence and wit is reflected in them. Sadly, these moments are brief and far between. One senses that in a better movie he could have been a decent Maigret but in this one, he just looks tired and ill at ease. The rest of the cast barely registers on screen.
"The Yellow Dog" is a stagy, uninteresting retelling of a badly-plotted Simenon novel and as such, it is not worth seeing. I doubt it is much worse than any of the rest of the 1930s cheapie thrillers made by the truckload in Britain and America, but as I wouldn't recommend those either I won't give "The Yellow Dog" any slack. Lacking in atmosphere or drama, it is a drawn-out flop.
"The Yellow Dog" is a fairly pedestrian retread of one of Georges Simenon's lesser novels the problem of which lies not so much in the intriguing premise as in the ludicrous turns the plot takes. Director Jean Tarride's dullish adaptation does little to fix this, opting instead to merely follow the action with as little invention as possible.
The plot also isn't helped by the fact that Tarride seems to have no feeling for pace. This 69-minute movie is tiresomely padded out with such insignificant distractions as frequent non-sequiturs with a travelling salesman (Jean Gobet), the grating comedic routines of Maigret's buffoon assistant (Robert Lepers), and infuriatingly drawn-out sequences of people walking in, out and through rooms. Now, bad comic relief and poor pacing are part-and-parcel of early talkies but the extent to which Tarride's film suffers from these ailments is astounding. This is in part also because the scenes which are actually important to the plot tend to be so short and develop so quickly that you often miss their importance. For instance, the discovery of the third murder occurs in an almost silent scene that passes so quickly that I was confused in the finale about why the character who was murdered was no longer in the picture. It was only my memory of the novel that helped me keep track of what was going on.
Most of the film takes place in cheaply built, overlit sets foregoing any possibility of atmosphere or stylishness. The main set of the film, the town inn, looks uncannily like a sitcom set. The walls even wobble when the doors are closed. All this is amateurishly shot by Nikolai Toporkoff. The framing in this film is truly awful to the extent that more often than not the centre of the screen is empty while all the action seems to take place on the edges or sometimes even beyond them. All while the studio lights blaze reflecting in windows and ruining the mood of the story.
In the centre of all this is Abel Tarride as Maigret, a poor leading man, sluggish and listless and consistently bored. Rarely does he so much as raise his voice, let alone emote. In fact, in most of his scenes, he looks like he's looking for an empty chair to sit in. This is curious, as at moments, a light seems to shine from behind Tarride's eyes and great intelligence and wit is reflected in them. Sadly, these moments are brief and far between. One senses that in a better movie he could have been a decent Maigret but in this one, he just looks tired and ill at ease. The rest of the cast barely registers on screen.
"The Yellow Dog" is a stagy, uninteresting retelling of a badly-plotted Simenon novel and as such, it is not worth seeing. I doubt it is much worse than any of the rest of the 1930s cheapie thrillers made by the truckload in Britain and America, but as I wouldn't recommend those either I won't give "The Yellow Dog" any slack. Lacking in atmosphere or drama, it is a drawn-out flop.
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