Passengers on a European train have been exposed to a deadly disease, and nobody will let them off the train.

A vineyard's manager marries the owner's very young daughter; father dies. Deceit, infidelity. The husband is forced to watch from a distance as his wife blossom socially in his absence; then the plot thickens.

Ponziani Armando, the owner of a thriving chemical industry, lives in a beautiful villa on Lake Como with his wife and his son Franco Ersilia.

Michael is a successful actor, but he has a scandal in his past: at a tender age he knifed his father to death. He and his girlfriend Deborah go to his mother's for the weekend, and are joined by the director and others from a recent film project, who are given a rather cool reception by the superstitious housekeeper Oliver. Soon rude things begin happening to some of the guests, and Michael fears a repeat of his nightmare past is in progress.

A tough, violent cop who doesn't mind bending the law goes after a machine-gun-carrying, hunchbacked psychotic killer.

Four bandits commit a robbery in a villa. The maid calls the police and Commissioner Carli immediately orders patrols to chase them.

A retired professor of American origin lives a solitary life in a luxurious palazzo in Rome. He is confronted by a vulgar Italian marchesa and her lover, her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend, and forced to rent to them an apartment on the upper floor of his palazzo. From this point on his quiet routine is turned into chaos by his tenants' machinations, and everybody's life takes an unexpected but inevitable turn.

A young man, Andrea, from the bourgeoisie of Lugano, with power in high finance, falls in love with a beautiful pianist, Antonia. Antonia leaves his fabulous career for the love she feels for him. Soon the beautiful women leads him in a growing state of jealousy which leads to a murderous obsession. The young man tells his passion to an unknown, in an airport while waiting for a flight.

A background of rising fascism in Venice in 1930s. A music-student, Matthias, mixes with the town's bourgeoisie and falls in love with a mature teacher, Carla, the mother of his friend Renato, and then with his young colleague, Elena.

"René la Canne" was the second collaboration between Francis Girod and Ennio Morricone, coming after "Le Trio Infernal" (1974) and before "La Banquière" (1980). His film is an adaptation of a story by Roger Borniche about the gangster René Girier and relates the fantastic adventures of a flamboyant mobster (René/Gérard Depardieu) and a maverick police inspector (Fernand la Sournoise/Michel Piccoli), through the 1940s.