I just received a wonderful copy of this film from TCM Shop. I was expecting a problem with the color, since a copy I had received from a fellow collector had strange color - pink for the sky and green in wrong places several years ago. (However, fingers crossed, I was hoping for an improvement).Though the film still has a disclaimer because of the ANCSCO Color problem, I was pleasantly surprised to see beautiful vivid color. Everything appears to be corrected as far as I can tell.THe acting of Charles Laughton, Franchot Tone, and Burgess Meredith was superb. I also liked Patricia Roc, Belita, and Jean Wallace in their roles. Not only were they totally convincing, but the breathtaking views of the Eiffel Tower and gorgeous Paris scenes were quite intriguing. Every scene is vivid and interesting. It was a pleasure to see Wilfred-Hyde White as Radek's former professor who was even afraid of him! Though the film is quite serious, there is a little humor toward the beginning when a waiter in a cafe shows Robert Hutton to the bar, where his wife and "his little blonde" are waiting.As the basic plot of the film has been described in previous reviews, I will just briefly comment on this great film.This Film Noir has the viewer on the edge of their chair during the cat and mouse scenes where the taunting killer leads Inspector Maigret and his assistants on a wild chase through the streets of Paris and over the rooftops. The climatic scenes are very frightening as he climbs the Eiffel Tower, with the man he had framed (Burgess Meredith) close behind him in deadly pursuit.A highly entertaining and timeless film accompanied by very lovely music.

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.

It's almost like someone was channeling the same year's The Third Man, except there must have been a lot of static on the line. Critics are right—the story line is darn near incoherent. See if you can follow who does what and why. The thread is about as choppy as a sausage string. The best parts are the extended glimpses of Paris we get as the characters race across the landscape usually for unfathomable reasons. I'm just sorry the color from Ansco on my DVD has bled, particularly the reds. Still, there are some really majestic shots of the tower in bright sunlight.What the movie does have is some really quirky acting, a surprise or two, and a rather humorous undercurrent. Meredith made a career out of eccentric roles. Here his jack-of-all-trades has coke bottle glasses, a mop of red hair, and a ton of agility. And, of course, there's the rotund Laughton, suggesting that the Paris police have fairly loose fitness standards. I'm just sorry we don't see more of Patricia Roc (Mrs. Kirby), the movie's one charming character. Just why Mr. Kirby (Robert Hutton) would jilt her for the wooden blonde Edna (Jean Wallace) is perhaps the movie's biggest mystery. And poor Belita, she's got featured billing and maybe three lines in the whole 90 minutes. Anyway, there may be parallels with the Welles classic, but this one amounts to a poorly narrated disappointment, despite a nail-biting climax.

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.