Florestan Mississippi, a public prosecutor by profession, visits a lady named Anastasia and, while drinking coffee with her, convicts her of poisoning her husband. At the same time, he asks for her hand in marriage, as he too has killed his wife with poison; the marriage is to be the "atonement" of the two poisoners. The four allegorical personifications in this comedy are, in addition to the loveless, absolute justice in the form of the prosecutor Mississippi, perfect equality, represented by the world revolutionary Saint-Claude, Christian love, embodied in the down-and-out, alcoholic tropical doctor Count Uebelohe-Zabernsee, and finally the "Frau Welt" of the old mystery play – Anastasia, who falls for everyone and betrays everyone, loves nothing but the moment, and dies with an invoked untruth on her lips.

1959 film by Kurt Früh

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.