In London, ambitious medical student Victor Frankenstein attends a circus performance, where he helps save an injured aerialist, Lorelei, by aid of a nameless hunchback enslaved by the circus' ringleader, who harbors feelings for the girl. Impressed by the hunchback's vast knowledge of human anatomy, acquired from stolen books, Victor rescues him, drains the cyst on his back that causes his physical abnormality and gives him a harness to improve his posture – he then names him "Igor Straussman" after his roommate who is not often at home. The two then become partners in Victor's ongoing experiments to create life through artificial means, incurring the wrath of devoutly religious police inspector Roderick Turpin, who views their experiments as sinful.