Cult director Jesus Franco had his greatest popular success with this horrific variation on George Franju's classic
Les Yeux sans Visage
. Set in 1912, the film concerns the efforts of mad surgeon Dr. Orloff (Howard Vernon) to reconstruct the face of his disfigured daughter Melissa (Diana Lorys). Helped by a freakish assistant named Morpho (Ricardo Valle), Orlof kidnaps several women including Dany (Maria Silva), a cabaret singer whose forgotten necklace is the clue which leads dedicated Inspector Edgar Tanner (Conrado San Martin) onto Orlof's trail. Using girlfriend Wanda Bronsky (also played by Lorys) as an undercover spy, Tanner lures Orlof into a trap, but the risks are greater than he imagines. Stock performers Perla Cristal, Mara Lasso, Venancio Muro, Felix Dafauce, and Juan Riquelme fill out the cast, while Franco himself appears as a pianist. Several versions exist, differing primarily in the amount of sex and violence depicted. One nude murder scene was later used in Pierre Chevalier's
Caroline Mannequin Nue
. Franco made the first of several sequels,
El Secreto del Dr. Orloff
in 1964.