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The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960)
Topic Started: May 24 2009, 05:19 AM (577 Views)
Laughing Gravy
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Ah, yes, our Hammer retrospective brings us back to this one.

The plan: Director Val Guest and Writer Wolf Mankowitz had just worked together on Expresso Bongo, and looking for another project together, pitched a revisionist version of Jekyll/Hyde to Hammer's Michael Carreras. This would be a 2-hour, big budget lavish film with music, to star Laurence Harvey. The idea was to show the hypocrisy of the Victorian era, when prim, proper morals masked sinful, deceitful behavior. To that end, Hyde would be far more handsome and charming than his alter-ego, and both would be equally, relentlessly ruthless in pursuit of their goals.

The reality: Guest was out and Terence Fisher, who didn't think much of the script or concept, was in. Harvey was out and Paul Massie, who was a pain in the ass to work with, replaced him. The script was whittled down to a more manageable hour and 20 minutes. And in the end, nothing worked, not least of all because everyone in the movie is rotten: Jekyll, Hyde, the adulterous Mrs. Jekyll, two-faced conniving best friend Christopher Lee, everybody. Rewatching it, I can see in retrospect how the rape sequence (Dr. Jekyll raping Mrs. Jekyll) pushed the envelope for its time, and I enjoyed seeing lovely little Janina Faye back again from Never Take Candy from a Stranger, but there's very, very little to enjoy about this film, just a complete misfire. Even Fisher later remarked on it, admitting that he must accept some of the blame, "it couldn't all be the scriptwriter's fault."

Hammer must've known they had a turkey on their hands, and an expensive one at that: filming went nearly 3 weeks over schedule, and the budget just blew up. The film sat on the shelf for eight months, and when released for Halloween 1960, did poorly in England. It wasn't released in the U.S. until the following summer, when - retitled House of Fright - it played the drive-in circuit with Terror in the Haunted House. A still later reissue as Jekyll's Inferno was none too popular, either.

Hammer quickly decided on what they figured would be a sure moneymaker, the long-awaited Dracula sequel.
Simply put, this one's a dog.

"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
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panzer the great & terrible
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Mouth Breather
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I can't think of any movie I disliked more than this one. A perfect example of what can happen if the director doesn't understand the script.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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