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Le Vrai Coupable (The Real Guilty) is a laid-back social drama with plenty of surprises. The main character, a young woman, is dead from the outset, the victim of a botched abortion. Detectives Mario (Philipe Lemaire) and Georges (Clement Thierry) politely shuffle through the clues to find out who was responsible for the girl's grisly fate. In so doing, they save the decedent's impressionable cousin from suffering the same denouement. The film's abortion angle prevented Le Vrai Coupable from attaining prime American bookings; in 1951, the subject was still taboo so far as the Motion Picture Code was concerned.