when Dr. Rossiter (Anton Diffring) botches an operation on a young girl scarring her face for life he has to flee England & ends up in France with a backwoods circus troop.A series of events including the unexpected death of the circus owner lead to the Doctor taking over the circus & using it as a front to continue his experimental & unconventional plastic surgery practices. He populates it with beautiful yet disfigured female criminals & thieves whom he restores to beauty & rescues from lives of prostitution & poverty. However once the circus becomes successful the ladies try to break away from him so he devises elaborate circus accidents to deal with their ingratitude.