In Victorian London's Whitechapel section, our story is told in flashback, as Dr. Henry Jekyll (Ralph Bates) commits his recent experiences to paper, by way of explanation and confession before the police come sot take him away. The brilliant doctor seeks an "elixir of life" that will grant greatly extended longevity, if not outright immortality, but he needs fresh female reproductive organs for his experiments. To achieve this ghastly end, he at first employs the services of Byker (Philip Madoc), a shady local morgue worker whose banter with the doctor contains more than a hint of inferences of necrophilia, and who knows the historically infamous "resurrection experts" Burke (Ivor Dean) and Hare (Tony Calvin), a pair of the scurviest gravedrobbers imaginable. They make their questionable living by supplying recently-interred corpses to medical schools, and now Dr. Jekyll, and, again, Burke's banter with the doctor implies "sepulchral sexy-time." No, Jekyll isn't that fucked-up, but he feverishly works 'round the clock in his apartment's lab for days on end, arousing the interest of an incredibly intrusive neighbor family, a trio of characters like something straight out of a sitcom and led by man-hungry Susan (Susan Brodrick), who has her sights set of the studly Dr. Jekyll.
While fielding constant interruptions and intrusions from Susan, Jekyll somehow manages to make progress with his experiments, successfully extending the life of a fly to over the human equivalent of 200 in human years. But the experiment yielded an unexpected side-effect, specifically that it caused the fly to transform from male to female. With that, Jekyll shifts experimental gears and instead focuses on creating what is in effect a sex change serum, meaning his quest requires ever more reproductive organs from deceased women. His timing is bad, however, as there is a shortage of freshly-dead girls, so, at their suggestion, Burke and Hare simply murder what is needed, and the doctor takes the bits that he requires, leaving everything else for sale to eager medical schools, all with no questions asked. Anyway, while dodging the advances (annoyances) of Susan, Jekyll succeeds in his task, tests the formula on himself, and transforms into toothsome , randy, and evil Martine Beswick, who immediately begins manually exploring her newly-minted tiddies. (In actuality only one tiddy, but I'll take what I can get.
Sister Hyde (Martine Beswick) checks out her newly-minted bodaciousness.
When the neighbors get wind of a woman in the doctor's apartment and mention that they are curious about her, Jekyll notes that she is his sister, "Mrs. Hyde," a recent widow.
As the corpses of young women begin to pile up, the hunt is soon on for "the Whitechapel Murderer" (translation: "Jack the Ripper"), while simultaneously the activities of Burke and Hare are uncovered and the pair at met with grim fates at the hands of a lynch mob. But more serum is needed to refine the process and hopefully make it
more controllable for the user, so Jekyll, getting personally
proactive, sets out at night into London's pea soup fog in search of
prey.
Dr. Jekyll takes matters into his own hands. But Jekyll still needs fodder for his deviant delvings and the authorities have a pretty good description of the killer, so Jekyll gets around that by transforming into Hyde and murdering his mentor, the lust-driven Professor Robertson (Gerald Sim), who suspected Jekyll as being the killer, but was thrown off the trail by witnessing a woman leaving Jekyll's abode while observing the residence during a police stakeout. Rodertson makes the fatal error of telling Jekyll of his knowledge of Mrs. Hyde's existence, thus ensuring the horny old sod's demise in Hyde's homicidal arms. Then, as Hyde, Jekyll hits the nighttime cobblestones in search of a victim.
Mrs. Hyde (Martine Beswick) stalks the night. But the maniac's identity has been figured out by a blind hurdy-gurdy player who has observed events on the streets with his keen ears throughout the narrative. He is coerced into giving up Jekyll to the police, and in no time Jekyll's home is invaded by cops. Jekyll escapes, but by this time his control over the transformation is random at best, with Hyde struggling for dominance, but during a perilous escape attempt that finds Jekyll hanging for dear life from a building's sill, he changes into Hyde in front of dozens of witnesses (including Jekyll's nosy neighbors), but, deprived of her masculine half's strength, Hyde loses her grip and perishes upon impact with the street, the corpse being a disturbing fusion of both male and female aspects. And so ends the bloody trail of the Whitechapel Murderer.
Simultaneously, so ends this dull, plodding slog of a film.
I first saw DR. JEKYLL AND SISTER HYDE in edited form at some point in the late 1970's and thought it pretty good at the time. But that was as perceived by 11-year-old eyes, so I had no idea that a lot of the film's fat had been excised for commercials. Seeing it uncut at age 57 was a chore, and I could not wait for it to end. I was something like fifteen minutes in when I said aloud "Boy, this movie is BORING!"
Basically the J&H story and kind of a proto-slasher, as it blends Jack the Ripper and Burke and Hare into the mix, this late Hammer entry came during a period when the company's signature red paint blood and risque heaving bosoms were being rendered obsolete thanks to more explicit fare from other international studios, so my guess is it was made as a bid to up their sex & violence ante by way of the then-shocking sexual reassigment angle, only using it as hoped-for titillation, but in actuality very little of any interest is done with it. In that department the film fails utterly, as, despite the presence of her royal fineness Martine Beswick veteran of two classic James Bond films (FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE and THUNDERBALL, to be precise), there is fuck all that's sexy going on here.
The characters, nearly the entire lot of them, are pretty much ciphers about whom it is impossible to care and who just play their roles while offering nothing else, with the notable exception of Gerald Sim's super-horny Professor Robertson. The guy is very clearly shown to be a poon-hound of the highest calibre, and he's a delight whenever she's on screen. At least the film wields considerable visual atmosphere, with a Victorian London of cobblestones, unsavory street people, dark shadows cast by gaslight, bawdy whores, an apparently mad homeless woman who sings to herself throughout the narrative, and pea soup fog, along with the sumptuousness of Jekyll's fancy tenement digs that come complete a full science lab whose aesthetics are at odds with every other set in the movie.
But perhaps the biggest disappointment of the film is that it was written by Brian Clemens, the co-creator/producer/writer of THE AVENGERS — the classic British spy TV series of the 1960's, not the Marvel superheroes — a man who often wrote with great cleverness, frequently with a touch of the surreal and bizarre. Even his weakest AVENGERS script blew this turgid turd straight out of the water. Thankfully, Clemens would redeem himself during his time at Hammer by writing, directing, and co-producing CAPTAIN KRONOS — VAMPIRE HUNTER, which was shot in 1972 but released in 1974. It bore all of the earmarks of Clemens at his best and weirdest, but more on that one some other time (possibly next year).
With all of that said, I am sad to note that DR. JEKYLL AND SISTER HYDE is without doubt the weakest Hammer film that I have seen so far, and I am most of the way through their entire roster. We shall see if anything from Hammer can rank lower in my estimation of their individual efforts. At least the censored version for TV was shorter and moved more briskly, thus, perhaps inadvertently, preventing the TV version from committing the cardinal sin of cinema by boring the viewer.
This film should have been released in today's climate of gender politics. There would be riots in the streets.
Poster for the U.S. theatrical release.
