For a “lost” film and legendary “problem” production, “The Man on the Eiffel Tower” (1949) certainly offers up a lot of delights for a cinephile.

If you’re looking for the film that convinced the great Charles Laughton that he should try his hand at directing, the one that pointed him towards “The Night of the Hunter,” this was it. Burgess Meredith is the credited director. The notoriously imperious Laughton, who drove no less than Alfred Hitchcock to distraction, had insisted his co-star take over just a couple of days into production, as original director Irving Allen was experienced but something of a hack.

Laughton, according to lore, directed the scenes that Meredith acted in. He got a taste, an idea actors and crew would listen to him without being just a star who threw his weight around, and “Hunter” became possible.

Meredith, eight years younger than Laughton, only claimed four directing credits in a screen career that covered 60 years. But like Laughton, he’d been around the theater and cinema for decades and knew his way around a script, a cast and a set. He shot this in (Ansco) color on location in Paris in post-war 1948, the first Hollywood film to be shot in color in the City of Light.

It’s fun, surprisingly polished, a near “noir” in color at times, with sharp performances and sequences that delight and dazzle over 75 years later.

And Laughton’s version of the plump, pipe-puffing police Commissaire Maigret of mystery novelist Georges Simenon, is a wry, deliciously detailed turn and a rarity in the Laughton canon. For once on screen, the great man was almost adorable.

An impoverished knife sharpener (Meredith) responds to money pressure from his beautiful, hotheaded lady love (Belita) by attempting a burglary of a rich American woman. He breaks in, only to find her dead, stumbles and drops his glasses. The killer is still there, steps on the glasses and gets him out.

Stumbling Heurtin could not have known that the victim was the main hope of her ne’er do well ex-pat nephew Bill Kirby (Robert Hutton), a man who avoids work even as his wife (Jean Wallace) meets his mistress (Patricia Roc) and ponder his poverty.

A stranger sends Kirby a note, a “million francs” offer of a murder for hire. That same stranger is the fellow who led near-sighted Heurtin home, promising to get him out of jail if he takes the rap.

Maigret visits the crime scene, notes “the work of a burglar who took nothing,” and suspects the man whose left-behind glasses mean “he practically signed his name” to the crime of being a patsy. He sets a trap to see who might be the real killer, allowing Heurtin to escape.

That’s what turns up the blustery, dashing pauper Johann Radek, played with a malevolent glee by Franchot Tone. He is cunning, as the first time we see him all we see are the shoes he chose to cover in burlap bags for the crime. We also notice the rope he uses for a belt. He’s broke.

Radek wears his overcoat like a cape and his intelligence like a great point of pride. He will match wits with “the over-stuffed bloodhound” Maigret, who seems baffled by the “animal” he’s caught’s tendency to prattle on, to self-identify as a suspect and boast of each and every alibi that the police seem to provide.

The man is under suspicion and perpetually under foot.

“By the way, there’s one thing I’d like to know. Am I following you, or are you following me?”

Laughton’s Maigret lets the antic Radek throw around cash, throw theories into the wind and generally hold forth as Maigret suffers his presence, empties his pipe by rapping it on a handy stone wall, and warily sizes this murderous Czech “genius” up.

Laughton’s beer-swilling performance is playful, a prototype for the way Peter Falk played “Columbo.” Maigret consults a handwriting expert about an incriminating letter sent to a local paper. After hearing the man leap to many a conclusion, he wonders, “Tell me, what do you do when a girl writes you a love letter?”

Our handwriting expert offers that he avoids such letters. Or will, if he ever gets one.

My favorite scene is a brilliant bit of Radek holding forth at a cafe as the frenetic old school Viennese style house string orchestra almost drowns the blowhard out. Tone, who plays this guy with the most wicked gleam, seems downright tickled at this bit of business Meredith cooked up.

“Man on the Eifel Tower” is also a grand color postcard of post-war Paris, with tanks still standing as monuments to the occupation and foreigners flocking to the capital, leaving the dark alleys to the sinister.

RKO was cheeky enough to credit “The City of Paris” as fifth-billed supporting player in the film, as Meredith & Co. use not just the Tower, but many famous attractions as backgrounds for an outdoor cafe scene or a chase across the Seine and across the city.

“Man on the Eifel Tower” has a bum reputation that seems more inspired by its troubled history and generic and sometimes perfunctory plot than its execution.

Laughton makes a grand Maigret. Tone dazzles, and the titular Tower and the city that surrounds it play their parts with style, panache and just a hint of grit. And all of it is captured on not-quite-as-vivid Ansco color in a “lost” film that is well worth tracking down on your favorite streamer.

Rating: approved

Cast: Charles Laughton, Franchot Tone, Jean Wallace, Patricia Roc, Robert Hutton, Belita, Wiflrid Hyde-White and Burgess Meredith

Credits: Directed by Burgess Meredith (with Irving Allen and Charles Laughton), scripted by Harry Brown, based on a story by Georges Simenon. An RKO release on Tubi, Amazon, Youtube, etc.

Running time: 1:36