DOCTEUR POPAUL

As a medical student, Paul became celebrated for the conquest of unattractive girls, finding them more satisfying than prettier ones. On holiday in Tunisia he met Christine, a shy young woman with a crippled leg, and took her virginity. Back in France he met her father, owner of a lucrative private clinic, who offered to make him co-director of the clinic if he married Christine.

At the wedding he met her beautiful younger sister, Martine, and applied himself to removing all her suitors one by one. He then took to drugging Christine so that he could spend the nights with Martine, who had his baby. He thought he had a happy family of wife, mistress, and child until a mysterious road accident left him crippled for life and emasculated.

Martine left him, and Christine brought him a drug so that he could end it all. After he took the drug, over the intercom Christine explained that while he was cavorting with Martine she was comforted by the co-director Berthier. Together they staged the accident, after which Berthier operated to remove Paul's mobility and virility. Paul screamed for help, but the room was soundproofed.

Paul is left crippled and emasculated in a staged accident orchestrated by Christine and Berthier. Christine reveals the revenge and Paul is left helpless in a soundproofed room.

The ending delivers a dark punchline to Paul's years of manipulation and arrogance. Christine, once passive, turns the tables, exposing the vulnerability of a man who believed himself untouchable. Chabrol uses this cruel reversal to critique the consequences of unchecked machismo and the illusion of control, leaving the protagonist with nothing but his regrets and an empty room.