 Marie, the charming daughter of Italian immigrants, has a dream : to become rich. In Roubaix, where she lives, she meets and marries small-time crooner Marcel Potier. Together they leave for the South of France where they live happily but poorly. Now, Marie hasn t forgotten her hopes of wealth and with this aim still in mind she pushes Marcel into becoming the swimming instructor of Achille Zopoulos, an oil tycoon. However, the latter, a potbellied John Blunt, does not really want to learn how to swim, all the more as he is (or seems to be) stuck in a wheelchair. In fact all that cruel Count Zaroff type wants is a submissive man in order to make him his plaything. Indeed Marcel soon finds his role at the villa is to be manipulated and humiliated by Zopoulos, the puppet-master who plays God, assisted to perfection in his disgraceful task by Logan, his stylish, ignominious butler...