Starring Louis de Funès as Ludovic Cruchot of the gendarmerie, the film is the first in the Gendarme series, and spawned five sequels.

Ludovic Cruchot (played by Louis de Funès), a highly uptight gendarme in a small French village, has been reassigned to the seaside commune of Saint-Tropez under the orders of Command Sergeant Major Gerber (played by Michel Galabru), who takes no lip from his outspoken new subordinate.

His daughter Nicole quickly adapts to the life in the city and, much to Cruchot's traditional-minded chagrin, begins to mix with the local carefree youths who often blatantly defy her father's official authority.

However, they ridicule her at first, so she states her father is a rich American named Ferguson who has arrived to the port with his yacht.

Later, Cruchot discovers that his daughter and her new boyfriend have stolen and crashed Ferguson's Mustang into a ditch, puncturing a tyre in the process.