In Venice, millionaire benefactor Cecil Fox (Sir Rex Harrison) watches a seventeenth century play "Volpone" and plots a practical joke to play on his three former greedy mistresses. He hires unemployed actor William McFly (Cliff Robertson) to act as his butler and stage manager and sends letters telling the mistresses he is terminally ill. The prime intention of Cecil is to see the reaction of the women after the reading of his will, but things do not go as planned.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil