Director: Terence Fisher
Writer: Wolf Mankowitz
Stars: Paul Massie, Dawn Addams, Christopher Lee
1 Hour, 26 Minutes
Amazon Link: https://amzn.to/31JljKL
Synopsis
Takes place in 1874. Dr. Jekyll calls a bunch of children “dumb human animals.” He’s a psychiatrist, and he calls them as he sees them. “All of my experiments are aimed at freeing the creature within,” he says. He’s recently resigned his position and now works alone on his research. He’s clearly becoming obsessed with his work.
He’s not worried about ethics; he just wants to find the beast within us in order to eliminate it. To demonstrate, he injects a small monkey with his serum, and it goes berserk. The drug will wear off in four hours, he explains. The eventual goal is to reveal only the good parts of a man. His wife, Kitty, is worried about him; She explains to Doctor Ernst that one night he went berserk in his room, and even his voice changed. She thinks his mind is seriously disturbed, and she asks him if it could be bad enough to have him institutionalized.
Henry’s friend Paul comes over, and as usual, he wants money. We learn that he’s also having an affair with Kitty. This just might explain the question about institutionalizing Henry. Henry asks Kitty to stay home tonight, but she already has plans with Paul, so she refuses to stay home with him.
As soon as she leaves, Henry shoots up with the serum.
Later, we see him from behind as he writes “Complete Success!” in his journal. The bearded and droning Jekyll has become the clean-shaven and soft spoken Mr. Hyde.
Hyde shows up at the party where Kitty and Paul are. He spots them and get positively nasty to the woman he’s dancing with. He sits with them and Paul is quite drunk. Kitty dances with Mr. Hyde. The other woman accuses Hyde of hitting her, and Hyde beats the crap out of the bouncer (Oliver Reed in a small role). He would have killed the man, but Paul stops him. He runs out jut as he starts to turn back into Jekyll.
Jekyll confronts Kitty, and he does look more than a little insane. “Who are you? Who am I?”
The next night, Hyde goes out partying with Paul. They go to a party where a nearly-naked dancing girl dances with a snake. Hyde really likes the girl, especially when she puts its head in her mouth. He follows her to her room, and he seduces her quickly. She mentions that her snake is very dangerous and even keeps it locked in a special room.
The next day, Hyde goes to see Kitty. He seduces her as well, but she says she loves Paul. Just then, he starts to change and runs off.
Henry goes to see Dr. Ernst, who says his life is burning up much more quickly than it should. Ernst knows it’s some new kind of addiction. Kitty refuses to give Paul any more money, so he dumps her. Paul goes to Henry, who tells him no as well. Jekyll changes his will to give Hyde everything if he suddenly vanishes. It seems like he’d rather not be Jekyll at all anymore.
Hyde runs into Paul at the club the next night. Hyde offers to pay Paul’s debts. In return, Paul needs to show Hyde all the seedier places in town; drinking establishments, opium dens, clandestine boxing matches, and meanwhile, Paul racks up more and more debt.
He offers Paul even more money to bring Kitty to him. Paul refuses and storms out. He makes a similar offer to Kitty. He’ll tear up Paul’s debts if Kitty sleeps with him. She laughs at him, and he storms out. On the way out, he beats up a beggar, mostly because we need to see him do something bad at some point in the film.
Kitty sends Henry a note saying she is leaving him. He locks up his formula and vows to never take it again, as he knows Hyde has too much influence over him. He changes anyway because Hyde wants out.
Hyde explains that Jekyll wants to meet Kitty and Paul that night to settle everything. Hyde locks Paul in the room with the dancer’s killer snake, and then he rapes Kitty. Kitty wakes up later and find’s Paul’s body. She suddenly gets dizzy and falls off the balcony, through the glass-ceiling ballroom to her death.
Hyde and the dancing girl make love one more time. Jekyll and Hyde battle each other internally, and they strangle the dancer. Jekyll runs back to his lab and has a debate with Hyde. Jekyll writes to Ernst for help, and Hyde threatens to kill the old man. Hyde shoots one of the servants to provide a body and then sets his own lab on fire. Hyde runs out, telling the inspector the Jekyll killed himself and set fire to the place.
Jekyll is declared dead by suicide. Hyde, of course, then inherits everything, but on the way out of the courtroom, he turns back to Jekyll in front of Ernst, the inspector, and everyone. He’s all gray-haired and old-looking now, but at lease Hyde has been destroyed.
Commentary
The music stands out in this one, and the soundtrack is fairly advanced for a Hammer film. There are many minutes with no dialog, and the music definitely helps fill in the silence. There are even a couple of entertaining dance numbers.
Jekyll’s beard looks fake from the get-go. Still, it was interesting that Jekyll is the bearded, somewhat ugly one, and Hyde is the clean-shaven, attractive version. Jekyll seems to go out of his way to be emotionless, expressionless, and boring.
Christopher Lee as Paul is very much a slacker and playboy here, and doesn’t seem menacing in any way. The surprising thing with this character is that that there aren’t any surprises; he’s exactly what he appears to be.
It’s surprisingly not very violent. With the exception of the murdered servant at the end, the only people who die deserve it.