The French Detective

Commissioner Verjeat (Lino Ventura) is a blunt, stubborn police chief who thinks the politician behind a volunteer's murder and a cop's death is as guilty as the thug who did the killing. Pierre Granier-Deferre follows him as the councilman he's chasing gets protected from above and Verjeat is ordered transferred within the week. What the film turns over is whether a policeman's sense of duty to the law means anything when the law answers to men in higher offices.