Widowed baker Zürrer has to raise his three children, who all turn out to be disappointments to him in various ways.

In this Swiss film noir a private investigator stumbles onto a case involving blackmail and an oversexed, under-aged girl. He finds the girl, and, tragically, becomes involved with her.

If any one man is responsible for the rejuvenation of the postwar Swiss film industry, that man was director Leopold Lindtberg. Matto Regiert (Madness Rules) was co-adapted for the screen by Lindtberg from a novel by Friedrich Glauser. Heinrich Gretler stars as Police Constable Studer, the hero of several of Glauser's most popular works. This time, Studer must solve the murder of the director of an insane asylum -- and it's not (surprise, surprise) the most likely suspect, manic-depressive patient Herbert Caplaun. For box-office purposes, Matto Regiert stresses a romantic subplot involving Caplaun and nurse Irma Wasem.

Old Grotzenbauer runs an industrial livestock and chicken farm on his property. His son and wife are shocked by the animal cruelty that comes with profit-maximized animal husbandry. Grotzenbauer himself becomes increasingly dependent on an unscrupulous feed supplier. And then the ventilation system in the barn breaks down...

Three bums get played by the devil.