Albert L. Tuttle (Jack Haley) is a life insurance salesman with
terrible timing. Upon reaching the lavish estate of millionaire Cyrus J.
Rutherford, Tuttle is informed by the eerie butler, Murkil (Bela
Lugosi), that his prospective client has recently died. In fact,
Rutherford's relatives are gathered to hear the
reading of his will. Soon, Tuttle is drawn into the strange brood's
world of secret tunnels, odd portraits and a vanishing corpse - all for
an alluring niece (Jean Parker).
Mad scientist Dr. Markoff (J. Carrol Naish) becomes fascinated
with Patricia (Wanda McKay), the daughter of concert pianist Anthony
Lawrence (Ralph Morgan). When Lawrence presses Markoff to leave her
alone, the doctor knocks him out and injects him with a secret serum
that grotesquely distorts his features. Markoff
offers to reverse the effects if Patricia will marry him, but Lawrence
refuses the offer and confronts the doctor, whose tactics grow
increasingly desperate.
When seamstress Lucille (Jean Parker) accepts a job designing
costumes for charismatic puppeteer and portrait artist Gaston Morrell
(John Carradine), she has no idea that he is, in fact, Bluebeard, the
infamous serial killer who has been terrorizing Paris. Sparks soon fly
between Lucille and Morrell but complications arise
when Morell's previous lover Renee (Sonia Sorel) becomes jealous and
must be dealt with according to Morell's grisly custom.
