[1] On a small island in the middle of the Rhone within the town of Geneva, the clockmaker Master Zacharius lives with his daughter Gérande, his apprentice Aubert Thun, and his elderly servant Scholastique.

Over the following days, Zacharius's illness and angered pride continue to increase, as more and more of his former clients bring their broken clocks back to him, demanding refunds.

The frantic Zacharius, believing his life to be wrapped up in the fate of the clock, agrees to let Pittonaccio wed Gérande against her will, thinking the marriage will grant him immortality.

The adaptation, starring Sam Jaffe as a benign Zacharius and Shirley Temple as Gérande, largely discarded Verne's plot and themes in favor of a Frankenstein-like narrative about an out-of-control automaton.

[6] In the same year, Alfred Hitchcock Presents aired an uncredited adaptation, "The Changing Heart", with Abraham Sofaer as the Zacharius character and Anne Helm and Nicholas Pryor as the equivalents of Gérande and Aubert, respectively; this version, directed by the Verne aficionado Robert Florey, altered the plot but preserved the Faustian overtones of the original.

[6] Maître Zacharius, an opera composed and adapted by Jean-Marie Curti, was premiered by the Opéra-Studio de Genève in Bonneville, Paris, and Geneva in 2008.