Film Review
The Two Faces of Dr Jekyll is
one of the more sophisticated of Hammer's impressive run of horror
films, an imaginative reworking of Robert Louis Stevenson's
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
which takes us into darker territory than is to be found in any of the
studio's more conventional horror offerings. The film fits more
neatly into Hammer's series of psychological thrillers (mostly filmed
in moody black-and-white) than it does into the company's lush period
horror films, the thrills deriving not from marauding vampires and
re-animated human cadavers, but from the terrifying possibilities of a
human mind that has lost its moral restraint. In a break from
previous treatments of Stevenson's famous tale, Dr Jekyll is the
unsympathetic, anti-social outsider whilst Mr Hyde is a handsome
man-about-town who is able to charm the pants off anyone he meets, male
or female. It's a more serious treatment of an idea that had
previously been exploited for comedic effect in Hammer's earlier
The Ugly Duckling (1959), playing
on the sad truism that evil is always more alluring than good.
Terence Fisher directs the film with his customary aplomb, and with the
support of Hammer's talented designers and ace cinematographer Jack
Asher the end result is one of the studio's most sumptuous productions,
one that offers the most vibrant reconstruction of the demi-monde known
to London's pleasure-seekers of the late Victorian era. A
set-piece erotic dance involving a snake and a sequence with
high-kicking dancers straight from the Moulin Rouge lend the film a
lurid eroticism of the kind that would become increasingly prevalent
in Hammer's later horror films as the censorship rules gradually eased
in the '60s and '70s. For its time,
The Two Faces of Dr Jekyll was
incredibly daring and it now seems remarkable that it should have got
past the censors - they clearly saw nothing amiss in the scene in which
a semi-naked female dancer writhes in pleasure as she introduces a
snake's head into her mouth. A more graphic depiction of 19th
century debauchery and hypocrisy is hard to find in a British film of
this era or earlier. The Jekyll-Hyde dualism provides a cogent
metaphor for the two faces of Victorian society which are vividly
portrayed in the film, public respectability versus private
self-indulgence.
Wolf Mankowitz deserves credit for the first rate script, which offers
not only an original and well-structured plot but far more in the way
of psychological depth than you'd expect to find in a film by
Hammer. Christopher Lee has cited the film as a personal
favourite of his, and well he might for it gave him the chance to play
a fully fledged and believable character who speaks naturalistic
dialogue, rather than some fantastic made-up ghoul whose every
utterance invites derision. Lee's portrayal of the 19th century
libertine Paul Allen is one of the more memorable aspects of the film,
although it has the unfortunate effect of diminishing the contribution
from Paul Massie, whose attempts to play both Jekyll and Hyde are
visibly marred by the actor's limited range and lack of charisma.
Massie's Jekyll is so dull and characterless that he barely registers,
whilst his Hyde mostly comes across as a pallid imitation of Lee's
character. It is only in the raunchier scenes with Dawn Addams
and Norma Marla that Massie comes into his own and becomes, as the part
demands, lethally seductive. Making his Hammer debut in one scene
is an uncredited Oliver Reed, who would go on to feature in some of the
studio's classier and weirder films -
The Curse of the Werewolf
(1961),
Captain Clegg (1962),
Paranoiac
(1963) and
The Damned (1963) - before
international stardom whisked him off to bigger and better
things. Both Reed and Lee would take the lead in subsequent
Jekyll and Hyde re-workings, the former in
Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype (1980),
the later in Amicus's
I, Monster (1970).
Despite being one of Hammer's more adult horror films,
The Two Faces of Dr Jekyll did not
fair well at the box office and lost £30,000 of its
£146,000 budget. The public seemed to prefer more
traditional horror thrills, and this is what Hammer stuck to pretty
solidly over the next decade. It can be argued that it was the
studio's slavish addiction to predominately one kind of horror film
(the Gothic fantasy) that would lead to its ultimate demise. It's
interesting that whilst the company was fighting for its life in the
early 1970s, it would return to R.L. Stevenson's story and give it its
most inventive twist yet, in the superbly off-kilter
Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde
(1971).
© James Travers 2015
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Terence Fisher film:
The Curse of the Werewolf (1961)
Film Synopsis
London, 1874. Dr Henry Jekyll is so absorbed in his scientific
research that he neglects his beautiful socialite wife Kitty. As
her husband potters about in his laboratory, conducting experiments in
an attempt to separate the components of the human psyche, Kitty has an
affair with his best friend, Paul Allen. The latter is a
hedonistic wastrel who has grown reliant on Jekyll to pay his gambling
debts, but Kitty is passionately in love with him. One day,
Jekyll subjects himself to one of his experiments and, in the process,
the dull, morally upright scientist is transformed into a handsome
pleasure-seeking rascal. No one could mistake the confident young
Edward Hyde for the dreary Dr Jekyll and within no time Hyde has
succeeded in gaining the confidence of both Kitty and Allen. Hyde
agrees to pay off all of Allen's debts in return for introducing him to
the seedier fleshpots of London and allowing him to take Kitty as his
own mistress. Hyde's amusements are curtailed when, from time to
time, Jekyll's personality takes over, restoring him to his former
self. In the end, the Hyde persona gains the upper hand and,
having done so, he arranges matters to ensure that Jekyll can never
return...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.