In an age of oppression and tyranny, Tell (Fraser) is forced to rise up against those who threaten his lands and family. The governor of Switzerland lies dying, and Austrian Hermann Gessler is waiting to take his place. Try as he might, Tell cannot keep himself out of the conflict that ensues, and soon finds his own wife and children embroiled in it. Refusing to bow to a tyrant, he is forced to shoot an apple off the head of his own son – and then he swears revenge. It is the inspiration of a nation, and the stuff of legend.