A modern retelling of the Greek myth of Phaedra. The young and fiery second wife of an extremely wealthy shipping magnate meets her estranged stepson Alexis and sparks immediately fly. Their love seems doomed from the beginning when she convinces him to come to Paris to meet his father.

Melina Mercouri plays Maya, a jet-setting Greek actress who returns to her homeland to undertake the role of Medea. Searching for inspiration and clues as to how a mother could kill the children she loves, Maya discovers Brenda (Ellen Burstyn), a bible-spouting American woman serving time in an Athens prison for that very crime.

This is the film Crete in Flames, with some changes made to exploit a true story – it is about the kidnapping of Tasoula Vardinoyannis by Yannis Kefalogiannis –, a story that had shocked and fascinated the entire Greek nation, and had received widespread publicity. The Battle of Crete and the legendary resistance of the brave Cretan people against the German occupiers who invaded the island en masse by air in 1942.