I'm seeing something that was always hidden. I'm in the middle of a mystery

           and it's all secret.

Jeffrey Beaumont returns home from college after his father suffers a near fatal stroke. While walking home from the hospital, he cuts through a vacant lot and discovers a severed ear. Jeffrey takes the ear to Police Detective John Williams through whom he meets the detective’s daughter, Sandy. She tells him details about the ear case and a suspicious woman, Dorothy Vallens. Increasingly curious, Jeffrey enters Dorothy's apartment by posing as a maintenance man, and while Dorothy is distracted by a man dressed in a yellow suit at her door, steals her spare key. Jeffrey and Sandy attend Dorothy's nightclub act at the Slow Club, leaving early so Jeffrey can sneak into her apartment to snoop. He hurriedly hides in a closet when she returns home. However, Dorothy, wielding a knife, finds him and threatens to hurt him. Thinking his curiosity is merely sexual and aroused by his voyeurism, Dorothy makes Jeffrey undress at knifepoint. Their encounter is interrupted by a knock at the door, and Dorothy hides Jeffrey in the closet. From there, he witnesses the visitor, Frank Booth inflict his bizarre sexual proclivities. Frank is an extremely foul-mouthed, violent sociopath who has kidnapped Dorothy's husband and son to force her to perform sexual favors. When Frank leaves, a sad and desperate Dorothy tries to seduce Jeffrey again and demands that he hit her, but when he refuses, she loses interest in sex and asks to be left alone.

While attending another of Dorothy's performances at the Slow Club, where she sings the song "Blue Velvet", Jeffrey spots Frank in the audience fondling a piece of blue-velvet fabric he cut from Dorothy's robe. Later, in the car park, Jeffrey watches Frank and his cohorts drive away before going to Dorothy's apartment again. Jeffrey spends the next few days spying on Frank, whom he sees entering a building. Shortly afterwards, a well-dressed man and the Yellow Man exit the building. He concludes the men are criminal associates of Frank. Jeffrey again visits Dorothy, who seduces him and asks him to strike her. When he refuses, she pressures him, becoming more emotional. In a blind rage he knocks her backwards and is instantly horrified, but Dorothy, as a result of Frank's constant beatings, derives pleasure from it.

Afterwards, Frank catches Dorothy and Jeffrey together and forces them both to accompany him to the apartment of Ben, a suave dandy and partner in crime (Ben is holding Dorothy's son). Frank takes Jeffrey to a lumber yard and savagely beats him to the overture of "In Dreams". Jeffrey wakes the next day and goes home, where he is overcome with guilt and despair. He goes to the police station, where he notices that Sandy's father's partner is Gordon — the Yellow Man. Later at Sandy's home, her father is amazed by Jeffrey's story, but warns Jeffrey to stop his amateur sleuthing lest he endanger himself and the investigation. After attending a dance party where they profess their love for each other, Jeffrey and Sandy are tailed on their way home. Fearing the follower is Frank, Jeffrey is relieved to discover that it is only Sandy’s jealous ex-boyfriend. A confrontation is averted when the group finds a naked and distressed Dorothy on Jeffrey’s front lawn. Barely conscious, Dorothy reveals that she slept with Jeffrey, causing an upset Sandy to slap Jeffrey, although she later forgives him.

Jeffrey insists on returning to Dorothy's apartment and tells Sandy to send her father there immediately. At Dorothy’s apartment, Jeffrey finds the crudely lobotomized Yellow Man and the dead body of Dorothy’s husband, with a missing ear. When he tries to leave, he sees the well-dressed man coming up the stairs and recognizes him as Frank in disguise. Jeffrey talks to Detective Williams over the police radio, but lies about his location inside the apartment. Frank enters the apartment and brags about hearing Jeffrey's location over his own police radio. While Frank searches for him in the apartment, Jeffrey retrieves the Yellow Man's gun and shoots Frank with it. Detective Williams arrives with Sandy in tow. With their lives back to normal, Jeffrey and Sandy, along with Dorothy and her son, are reunited.

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