- Director: Roy Ward Baker
- Writers: Robert Louis Stevenson, Brian Clemens
- Stars: Ralph Bates, Martine Beswick, Gerald Sim
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 34 Minutes
- Link: https://amzn.to/2NwpNz6
Synopsis
We start out with a shot of a man standing by a “wanted” posted for the “Whitechapel Murderer.” The man we see follows a working girl down a dark alley. Could he be Jack the Ripper? We see the sign again, so it seems likely. The sign reads “A tall man wearing a tall hat and a dark cloak,” which really narrows it down for this time period. We see “Jack” stab the girl to death. He cuts something out of the girl and puts a piece of her in his case. Then he runs away.
He goes inside building and washes his hands and the knife. It’s Dr. Henry Jekyll, a 30-year-old male. He writes his story in his journal, which segues into a flashback of what happened. Jekyll was looking to develop a “universal antivirus,” and claims that he’s already cured diphtheria. Cholera is next on his list. His colleague, Dr. Robertson, whines that his experiments will take the rest of his life. Jekyll then decides that he wants to cheat death, so he can live long enough to cure everything; he wants the elixir of life. He stops by the morgue to pick up a few spare body parts, and then he gets right to work.
Meanwhile, the girl downstairs, Susan, has a bit of a crush on Jekyll, and she watches him go out at night. Jekyll manages to keep a fly alive for the equivalent of 280 years. Jekyll thinks he used a male fly, but sure enough, it’s a female now; it even laid eggs. He hires Burke and Hare to get more body parts, and they are quite efficient.
He finally tries his elixir on himself. He gags and chokes and wanders all over the house in pain, and then collapses on the floor. When he gets up, he’s a woman now. Howard, Susan’s brother, barges in to see if everything is OK, and he sees the woman Jekyll has become. She soon passes out, and in a few hours, Henry is back. He explains to Susan that Mrs. Hyde is his sister, which pleases both Susan and Howard.
“Bad things” happen to Burke and Hare. Susan brings lunch to Henry. Henry needs parts to make more of his formula, so now he goes out for women himself. He goes home with another call girl and this time, he kills her himself. He makes more elixir and once again becomes a woman. She pulls a curtain down off the wall and wraps it around herself- it’s suddenly an elegant dress. She immediately runs into Howard, whose eyes nearly pop out of his head.
The transformation doesn’t last very long, so he needs to keep killing women for raw ingredients. Dr. Robertson examines the corpses, and he figures out pretty quickly that Jekyll is doing the dirty deed. He and a policeman stake out Jekyll’s house, but Jekyll never leaves; it’s only a woman going out. Now it’s Mrs. Hyde’s turn to kill. Since Jekyll never went out, that exonerates him.
The next morning, Jekyll finds himself strangely attracted to… Howard of all people. He also starts arguing with himself in the mirror. Mrs. Hyde’s becoming more and more dominant inside him. Robertson comes by to congratulate Jekyll on his new girlfriend. That evening, Robertson comes back and sees Mrs. Hyde, who seduces him quickly and kills him even quicker.
Next morning, Jekyll wakes up and destroys his lab equipment. He’s had enough. He changes then without the serum. She’s in control now. Susan and Howard both visit as Hyde begins to change back, so she throws them both out. Jekyll makes a date with Susan to go to the opera. Jekyll doesn’t show up, but Hyde does. She sneaks up behind Susan with a knife, but Jekyll starts to take over, and Susan escapes.
We move forward in time to the scene from the opening. The blind man we have seen so many time turns out to be Mr. Hare, now blinded, and he knows who the murderer is. The police come for Jekyll, who is finishing up his journal. Soon, there’s a crazy chase across the rooftops of London which goes badly for Jekyll, and he falls to his death.
Commentary
We never really find out what Jekyll/The Ripper is cutting out of the dead women. It was a nice touch to tie in the Dr. Jekyll story with Jack the Ripper.
I remember this being on TV all the time when I was little, and I thought it was one of the more boring Hammer films. I haven’t seen it in many years, but as an adult, I appreciate it a lot more. It’s got a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle humor. From the morgue attendant to Dr. Robertson, most characters have some really funny lines. It’s also funny how Susan and Howard are vying for the same person’s attention in two different personas.
Over all, I give this one a strong thumbs-up, and it holds up pretty well, even the special effects, almost fifty years later.