Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde is a 1971 British horror film directed by Roy Ward Baker loosely based on the short story Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.
The film is notable for showing Jekyll transform into a female Hyde; it also incorporates aspects of the historical Jack the Ripper and Burke and Hare cases into the plot. The two characters were played by the film’s stars, Ralph Bates and Martine Beswick. Caroline Munro was initially offered the part of Sister Hyde but refused because it required some nudity.
Plot:
Professor Jekyll, an earnest scientist, obsessively works day and night haunted by the fear that one lifetime will not be enough to complete his research; sidetracked from his objective he becomes consumed with developing an immortality serum. Once convinced his findings are complete, he consumes the potion only to discover that he is to become two as he turns into half Jekyll and half Hyde.
Desperate to cover up his new found identity he calls her his sister, but things take a turn for the worse when he realises that he needs female hormones if he is to maintain his existence. Before long he is battling with his alter ego Mrs Hyde, as a number of young girls begin to go missing in the streets of London…
The BBFC requested cuts to remove the inter-cutting of a murder and a rabbit gutting, and to edit a bedroom murder and the stabbing of Professor Robertson. The bedroom murder was shortened though Hammer re-edited the stabbing of the doctor to comprise flash shots of earlier killings. Despite initial BBFC objections the film was then passed, and all later releases feature this same edited print.
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Reviews:
” … takes elements of the film which began the cycle fifteen years earlier, The Curse of Frankenstein, and moulds them with the pop culture of a more liberated age to achieve one of the company’s most accomplished and enjoyable films of the decade and points towards the direction the company should have taken in order to survive.” Jonathan Sothcott, Ten Years of Terror
“This is a great film, in need of major re-appraisal. Full of in-jokes and knowing winks to the audience, it’s everything a low-budget horror should be.” British Horror Films
“Roy Ward Baker does an excellent directing job, allotting for the right amount of sensuality and violence without going overboard, keeping it a classy affair. The low budget reveals an obvious restriction of sets, but Baker is able to convey a hearty vision of 19th century London.” George R Reis, DVD Drive-In
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Trailer:
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Categories: 1970s, adaptation of a short story, British, Hammer, insanity, mad scientist, sexploitation
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