Léon Mathot has always lived a roving life on the sea, thanks to a fortune left him by his mother and an indulgent father. But when his mail catches up to him comes a letter from his father, telling him he should be working... and another letter saying his father is dead. Mathot returns to Paris, where he discovers his father's bank has been smashed by his last round of investments in Iceland that turned out worthless. He tells the big bankers to take his mother's fortunes, and goes to work for a sympathetic ship owner, who puts him in charge of a fishing boat, and later a trawler. Mathot quickly proves himself able to keep discipline on a rowdy crew. But when cabin boy Maurice Touzé dies in a shipboard accident, his last request is to be buried in Iceland. Mathot sets course to the bit of land his father's bankrupt company owns and carries out the youth's wishes. He then takes some time off in Paris, where he meets and falls in love with Madeleine Renaud (in her screen debut). He also learns that the stone he picked up in Iceland is malachite, a valuable semi-precious stone.
It's a rambling sort of movie, carried on the backs of Mathot and Mlle Renaud's easy charms. Mathot plays an attractive fellow who seems content to drift, but act when needed, and the lady is very charming, with a demure smile, far from the sort of behavior she would indulge in during her better-remembered femme fatale phase. Mathot would give up acting for the camera after 1927, when he would turn director for the next quarter of a century. He died in 1968, age 82.
