Pierre Vernier

Following the assassination of the President, an investigation commission comes up with questionable conclusions about a lone gunman. The commission’s findings are not good enough for dogged State Attorney Volney, played by screen great Yves Montand. Volney reopens the case and unspools a tightly wound conspiracy plot in Henri Verneuil’s icy-cool and intelligent investigative thriller.

Famed purveyors of human neuroses, beloved auteur Claude Chabrol and writer Georges Simenon are a match made in heaven, as shown in this heady tale of bourgeois malaise. Playing glamorous confidante to Marie Trintignant’s fallen heroine, an icy Stéphane Audran embodies a murkier side of femininity.