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Dr. Jekyll is trying to create some Elixir of Life through the use of female
hormones he gets from the glands of dead women. When he tries out the potion
on himself, it turns him into a "beautiful woman with an unstoppable taste for
mayhem." Can both of them "share a rampage of ghastly murder and perverse
desire"? This one is a "gender-bending twist" on the classic horror story
and is one of the "most provocative shockers" from Hammer. It includes footage
that was not seen when it was released to theatres in the U.S. 1971, 96 minutes, Widescreen, DVD
Have you ever wanted to be a woman? Maybe deep down inside of you there was
some type of really stacked brunette just waiting to get out and prance around
Victorian London slicing and dicing whores? I don't think it would be too much
of a surprise if most of you admitted that "yes, I've had these feelings
before, but I always thought I was some kind of freak or was all alone in the
world." No, you wouldn't necessarily be a gender-confused, violence-prone
deviant, you'd just be British. This movie is Hammer Films remake of the
Robert Louis
Stevenson classic about a doctor that goes and drinks some of his own bilge
water in an attempt to do some kind of experiment. Obviously, I have never
read the book, because well, it's a book, but do I have a little experience
with some of the themes in this movie. No, I'm not talking about that incident
in the laundry room with that woman's clothes (really, I thought it was my
dryer), but I am something of an expert on this whole Jekyll and Hyde thing.
See, I watched Abbott & Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde so I think I can safely say that I'm well versed enough in the story to
qualify as a "film scholar" on the subject. And though I'm still stinging from
Anchor Bay's refusal to contact me about writing some liner notes about
this movie based on that experience, I will just give away all my expert
analysis, penetrating views, and obfuscated sentence structure for free to my
faithful readers. Based on Bud and Lou's movie, I can tell you that the book
is about a couple of bumbling American cops out to learn some British
law enforcement techniques and their subsequent misadventures in tracking down
a vicious beast in London. The only other part of that movie I remember is
that at some point one of the two sat down on a really long syringe (funny
stuff). Inexplicably, Hammer completely ditches all of these classic elements
of this story and instead relies on some blah blah about a doctor researching
some big anti-virus drug.  Dr. Jekyll is played by Ralph Bates who we also saw (unfortunately) play a
horny school teacher in Lust For A Vampire. He does a much better job here as the tormented doctor who yearns only to
wear a corset and heels, even as he is continuously harassed by the virgin that
lives downstairs from him in the boarding house. Jekyll is garters-deep in a
research project that consumes his every waking hour. He explains to his pal
Professor Robertson that he is going to come up with something that will cure
every disease all at once. Robertson doubts this very much and kindly points
out that it will probably take him two years to cure cholera, two more for
typhus, a couple more beyond that for the clap and so on. Jekyll rapidly does
the math and since he is a brilliant doctor, realizes that if it takes him a
full two years to cure each and every disease, he could be well into his
fifties before he gets through most of the important ones. If only there was
some way for him to live forever (or at least long enough to finally cure gout
or something). Jekyll ponders this for about two seconds and comes up with his
all-new, double-secret project (except for telling Robertson). He will invent
an elixir of life! This will allow him all the time in the world to beat back
the embarrassment of athlete's foot. Now, just how are we going to go about
inventing this elixir that sounds so far-fetched? Of course! Since women's
skin is always soft and silky smooth (not that Jekyll would know anything about
the touch of a woman - at least not until he's touching himself later on in the
film) and since chicks don't go bald while men do, there must be something in
their hormones that prolong life (or will at least help Jekyll get rid of that
pasty complexion of his). Where in the world is he going to get hormones from
beautiful, young broads? Dead whores, silly! Remember this was before that
Nintendo guy invented the computer, so it wasn't like he could order Russian
women off the internet or anything. Jekyll gets supplied by the local morgue
attendant and things are going well at first, until the young broads aren't
dying fast enough for the experiment. He gets a couple of body snatchers named
Burke and Hare to do their thing and they rustle up bodies of wanton women by
hook and by crook.  Just in case your old lady sees you watching this movie and accuses you of
indulging in your secret desire to turn into a girl or something, you could
play it off like you were getting a little lesson in English history (though we
all know why you're really checking it out). It turns out that these body
snatchers were the real deal! It was Christmas time, 1828 and all these
medical students wanted cadavers to practice on. Scottish law said only
criminals could be used and you could only do one body a year, but there
weren't enough criminals dying and it only takes an afternoon to chop up a body
(What are you supposed to do the rest of the year?) so it was up to a couple of
Irish immigrants named Burke and Hare to fill the void with their own supply.
It all started innocently enough with the duo swiping bodies out of graves, but
regular folk weren't dying fast enough for Burke and Hare either. Victims of
their own success, Burke and Hare started strangling people in Edinburgh and
handing them over to local docs for dissection. Eventually, they got busted in
regards to the disappearance of one woman, Hare ratted out Burke, Burke got
executed and his body got donated to science for dissection! Wah, wah, wah,
waaaaa! Supposedly you can still go over to Edinburgh and see his skeletal
remains on display at one of the medical schools there. See, this movie is not
only eye-opening as to your own gender-confusion, but it's darn educational as
well! Of course in the movie, the people of London get wind of Burke and
Hare's activities (What were they doing in London?) and hang one of them and
dump the other in a lime pit. While his body-snatching pals are busy getting
whacked, Jekyll tests out his potion on a fly and is surprised to see that it
has turned a male fly into a female fly. Somehow, he must have thought that
was some type of success because the next thing I know he's downing a fifth of
his whisk-she and turns into Martine Beswick. He begins to fondle himself,
but is interrupted by the brother (Howard) of the virgin (Susan) that was
harassing Jekyll earlier. Thanks for nothing, Howard! Since everyone thought
that Jekyll was one those guys that watches Frasier regularly, they were a bit surprised to find a woman in his place. Howard has
the hots for her and Susan is irritated because she wanted Jekyll (why?).
Jekyll tells everyone that this woman is actually his sister, a widow named
Mrs. Hyde. Since, like me these people don't read the classics, they actually
believe a guy would introduce some sexy broad as his widowed sister named Mrs.
Hyde. 
With Burke and Hare finished and with Jekyll two-timing himself, Jekyll decides
that if he's ever going to wear the pants in the family again that he'll need
to start procuring chick hormones himself. He goes out and starts slashing
prostitutes and since it takes place in Whitechapel, you think that he would
have at least bumped into Jack The Ripper on one of his little forays.
Periodically he turns into Mrs. Hyde (but not too often) and she does little
more than purr suggestively at Howard and charge sexy dresses that get sent to
Dr. Jekyll while he's trying to entertain Susan the Virgin (This dress? It's,
um, for my widowed sister, Mrs. Hyde.). Susie wonders a little bit why she
hasn't gotten to see Mrs. Hyde and for a little while I thought we were going
to have one of those Lois Lane style deals where she's always trying to trick
Superman into appearing with Clark Kent, but that angle never panned out.
Finally she does see Mrs. Hyde, but Hydie can't be bothered because she's going
out to kill! I think it was Mrs. Hyde that was doing all the slashing, though
that doesn't make a lot of sense, since the slashing was to get hormones to
cure Jekyll of being Mrs. Hyde. At the very end of things, Jekyll says that he
has to kill someone all by himself (i.e. without Hyde's involvement) for one
last stab (hehehe) at fixing himself, so I took that to mean that it was the
Mrs. that had been doing everything prior to that. She also manages to kill
Jekyll's pal, Robertson, because Robertson had figured out that Jekyll was
responsible for all the Whitechapel murders, though obviously he hadn't quite
caught on to the fact that Jekyll had a penchant for turning into a murderous
hottie. Hyde is determined not to let that wimpy Jekyll get rid of her and
decides that once Susan the Virgin is dead meat, that the battle will be over
(I suppose that Jekyll's will would be broken irrevocably with the death of the
girl that he's fond of) so she goes off into the foggy night to stab Susan.
This was the same night that Jekyll stood Susan up for a date (Mrs. Hyde had
other plans for them) and for reasons that remain as murky as that night, I
don't know why Susan went traipsing around in the dark with a murderer on the
loose. Luckily for her, Jekyll's personality comes through a bit (We always
know when
this happens because they show us a shot of hairy man's hand, instead of the
silky smooth, well-manicured hand of Mrs. Hyde) and Hyde is unable to kill her . Somehow or other the blind organ-grinder (Huh?) tips off the police that Jekyll
is the man they want for all these crimes and they go after him in a climatic
roof top chase. The end comes as Jekyll begins to once again turn into Mrs.
Hyde. This is nicely done with his face being reflected in different ways
through a stained glass window. He goes splat on the ground below, his face
kind of trapped halfway between man and woman. This was, despite its
gratuitous title, a pretty classy effort (Even the music was high class!).
There was none of the gore and/or sexy scenes that you would be hoping, I mean,
expecting. Instead, they concentrate on Jekyll's struggle with his own
inner-babe. Bates does a very good job portraying the slightly prissy
scientist and he does comes off as a dude with a little woman inside of him.
Because of the gender spin that is put on the Jekyll and Hyde story, the movie
isn't about the actual transformations as much as it is about the impact his
interactions with other people has on himself. The movie tries to show us
right in the beginning that Jekyll may be more prone to be, shall we say,
different, when more than one character comments on Jekyll's lack of woman
action (Howard actually almost comes out and says that Jekyll's gay!). When he
does turn into Mrs. Hyde, you're mentally trying to determine what it means for
his sexuality when he starts making out with Howard. Is he gay? Is he bi? Is
he a straight woman trapped inside a mad scientist's skinny body? Things are
so twisted up for Jekyll that he caresses Howard's cheek (while he's still
Jekyll) and looks longingly into his eyes while the two are standing outside a
corset shop! I doubt that all transsexuals out there would embrace this as a
movie celebrating their plight since it portrays Jekyll as being driven
completely nuts by the whole mess, but we should probably chalk that up to the
tight corsets and not to his she-male tendencies. Things were a bit muddled as
to the point of all the killings once he turned into Mrs. Hyde and I was never
convinced that this blind organ-grinder knew enough to finger Jekyll, thus
bringing the film to its inevitable conclusion, but it didn't detract from the
overall enjoyment of this film. My really big complaint was that they only
scratched the surface of the problems and whacky situations that a geeky
scientist would run into when he changed into a sultry vixen at unexpected
intervals. Simply put, this movie was not sleazy enough for its provocative
subject matter. You kept expecting more outrageous things to happen, but
Jekyll never did more than break dates with the virgin and neck with Howard.
Pretty good for what it was, but probably should have been more. The
puritanical woman inside of me liked it, but the dirty old man in me was
disappointed.
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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