“The City of Paris” is credited as one of the stars of this bizarrely menacing little film. Its bustling streets are the locus for a Cheshire-cat-and-mouse game between Georges Simenon's Inspector Maigret (Charles Laughton); his prey, a pathetic street vendor (Burgess Meredith); and his prey, Franchot Tone as a Nietzschean manipulator with a penchant for hanging his grand philosophies off the Eiffel Tower. Director Meredith recreates a Paris straight out of Les Misérables for actor Meredith, then updates it with neorealist street scenes, a Wellesian tracking camera, and a trio of amoral American expatriates (a man, his wife, and his mistress, arm in arm); in this universe everyone has something to gain by murder, and a nearsighted little man is lost indeed. Enter Maigret-sly, a bit shy, always courteous, and bitterly moral as portrayed by Laughton-to torment his victim as he saves him from larger predators.