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The Man on the Eiffel Tower | Year: 1950 Classification: Mystery / Suspense Directed: - Burgess Meredith - Irving Allen - Charles Laughton Very good movie....EXTREAMLY poor transfer. BEWARE With this being a very difficult movie to get a hold of, I was thrilled it was getting a DVD release. Now I know why the price tag is so low on it. I have seen better transfers of films from UHF TV stations in the middle of the night. It is grainy beyond belief, with a scratchy distorted soundtrack, and has so many splices in parts it makes it laughable. (remember those BBC 'Benny Hill' sketches with "Cheapo Films" when the splices in the film distorted the scene you were viewing ? This is what we are talking about here, folks....) Making matters worse, the colors are so badly faded it resembles a black & white film. Night sequences turn blue, skin tones turn yellow, whites turn light tan/bone....you get the point. GOTHAM DISTRIBUTION should be ashamed of themselves for ever allowing a product this poor to be released to the general public. I realize they think a $7-8 price tag is reasonable enough...I, personally, wouldn't pay more than 99 cents. Its barely worth that alone. I will never purchase anything by GOTHAM Distribution again. What a joke ! This gem of a movie deserves better fate. An uneven crime thriller Burgess Meredith, of all people, directed this oddball thriller, which features Franchot Tone as an ice-cool (but quite deranged) criminal mastermind who secretly yearns to be caught, and taunts a Parisian detective, Inspector Maigret (Charles Laughton) into hounding him. The moodiness of the film's beginning is undercut by the implausibility and uneven direction of the cat-and-mouse machinations of the second half; Laughton's character loses steam and while Tone delivers some choice moments eye-bulging insanity, it's had to make heads or tails out of his overly-explicit taunts of Maigret's faltering investigation. Sort of a lesser version of "The Third Man," with a resplendid mid-century Paris in place of a war-torn Vienna. Nice look at the inner workings of the Eiffel Tower as well... An interesting early adaptation of mystery novelist George Simenon's Maigret character, but ultimately a fairly shaky film. A FINE FILM NOIR. Simenon's seminal sleuth, Maigret, was never better enacted than by the shrewd, slow and sure Charles Laughton who is after a thrill-killer-for-hire Franchot Tone. Tone's portrait of a psychopathic murderer, who enjoys killing because it feeds his warped ego is fascinating. When the nephew of a rich woman hires Tone to kill his aunt and Laughton investigates. A very clever game of cat-and-mouse ensues. The acting is truly outstanding in this film: Tone actually and triumphantly overcomes Laughton's masterful mannerisms in their scenes together. The viewer is treated to a majestic Paris while we slowly engage in the thrilling story and the superb chase on the Eiffel Tower is uniquely exciting. Burgess Merideth (!) was the director, and he did an admirable job. The music score by Michel Michelet is exeptional. Buy The Man On The Eiffel Tower at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on The Man On The Eiffel Tower Search with the Priority Search Engine on The Man On The Eiffel Tower This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
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