New Wave director Claude Chabrol employs an aloof perspective in this tale of murder and a dysfunctional family. The paterfamilias Henri Marcoux (Jacques Dacqmine) is having a fling with the neighbor woman Leda (Antonella Lualdi). When she turns up murdered, police suspect the milkman, a friend of the Marcoux's sultry maid Julie. But Laszlo (Jean-Paul Belmondo) the non-conformist Hungarian boyfriend of Henri's daughter Elisabeth (Jeanne Valerie) thinks not. Was the killer Henri's unbalanced son Richard? His wife Therese (Madeleine Robinson) is a regular harridan; is she guilty? Robinson won the "Best Actress" award at the 1959 Venice Film Festival for her portrayal of Therese.