The place is Palermo, and brothers Carmelo and Salvatore La Marca, tired of fabricating religious statues, decide to become film producers. They open Trinacria Films, determined to outdo Cinecitta and put Sicily on the map. Their financier is an eccentric baron and their patrons a scheming politician and the obscenely named Cardinal Sucato (sucked). But Trinacria Films is a commercial disaster. After a series of flops, the La Marca brothers come up with the idea of shooting a cheap rip-off of a successful cape-and-sword costumer about an 18th-century magician called Cagliostro. Erroll Douglas, an actor well down the road to Sunset Boulevard, is brought over from Hollywood to play the lead. He's the only professional on the set, but he can't communicate because no one speaks English.