Orson Welles writes, directs and stars in this French adaptation. In 19th-century Macau, the rich and ageing merchant Charles Clay (Welles) decides to use his power to make an old seafaring legend come true: that of the wealthy old man who hires a young sailor to make his beautiful wife pregnant. To this end, Clay gets his assistant Levinsky (Roger Coggio) to hire his former business partner's daughter Virginie (Jeanne Moreau) to portray his wife and sends him to find a suitably destitute sailor to complete the tale.