Perhaps no director has so successfully wedded genre to an intellectual cinema as has Claude Chabrol; his thrillers, dating back to the sixties, are built of a cold geometry of psychological insights. Just when critics were complaining that the great New Wave director had "run out of material that interests him," Marin Karmitz helped reinvigorate Chabrol's career by producing four successful films in a row. Of his Inspector Lavardin (Jean Poiret), introduced in Poulet au Vinaigre, Chabrol notes, "As you probably noticed, policemen generally go by twos, as nuns in the old days. One of them has the threatening attitude...whereas the other one is more compromising and cools down the situation; he is understanding and friendly. Jean Poiret summarizes the two aspects of the police in one person." The plot revolves around the venal machinations of several important personages in a provincial town-the doctor, the butcher, the notary-who are trying to get their mitts on a piece of choice real estate. Its crazed owner and her mama's-boy son (Stéphane Audran and Lucas Belvaux, perhaps modeled after the Bateses) take measures to protect their property, and the murders begin. "The superb Jean Poiret is disturbingly funny as the police inspector who makes a traditionally late entrance and promptly steals the show" (Lenny Berger, Variety).