A hapless orchestra player becomes an unwitting pawn of rival factions within the French secret service after he is chosen as a decoy by being identified as a super secret agent.

After several inhabitants of a new city were bitten by dogs, a young doctor tries to put a stop to the climb of violence.

In Louis Malle's lauded drama, Lucien Lacombe is a young man living in rural France during World War II who seeks to join the French Resistance. When he is rejected due to his youth, the resentful Lucien allies himself with the Nazis and joins the Gallic arm of their Gestapo. Lucien grows to enjoy the power that comes with his position, but his life is complicated when he falls for France Horn, a beautiful young Jewish woman.

Although based on a novel by Georges Simenon, director (and songwriter) Serge Gainsbourg has superimposed several dark emotions and a subtle brutality over the weak plot about a man's trip to Africa and his unfortunate passion for a murderess whose amorality sends the disillusioned fellow back to Europe. Sometimes described as frustrating and self-centered, reactions to this film swing across a broad spectrum of complaints -- not the least might be whether or not Gainsbourg is using a clichéd and stereotypical view of "dark Africa" to convey what he sees in his characters.

A surgeon saves an notorious mobster's life. This could be the answer to the doctor's problems, as he is engaged to an unbearable, hysterical woman. The mobster agrees to assassinate her. Except for one thing. The mobster has the wrong target, a young, innocent journalist who resembles his fiancee. When the surgeon discovers they are after the wrong woman, he takes off in a mad race to Cote d'Azur to save the wrong woman from being murdered.

Two bank robbers, an old and a young, escape from prison to get to the hidden loot.

Alfred Mullanet, an unlucky player who lives on his wife's income, becomes in a few moments the object of interest of two thugs, Kruger and Mister K.

Mathilde de Blanzac is abducted on her way home from an evening at the opera with her wealthy industrialist husband. Her pathetic pieds-nickelés kidnappers begin by holding her hostage at the home of Petit Jean, a country bumpkin, before demanding a ransom from her husband. At the same time, Hubert de Pifre, a fighter pilot in distress, ejects over Petit Jean's farm.