Story of movie The Two Faces Of Dr. Jekyll :
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The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll is a 1960 horror film by Hammer Film Productions. It was directed by Terence Fisher, and stars Paul Massie as Dr. Jekyll, and co-stars Dawn Addams, Christopher Lee and David Kossoff. It was written by Wolf Mankowitz, based on the 1886 novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.
| The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll | |
|---|---|
UK theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Terence Fisher |
| Produced by | Michael Carreras |
| Screenplay by | Wolf Mankowitz |
| Starring | Paul Massie Dawn Addams Christopher Lee David Kossoff Francis de Wolff |
| Music by | David Heneker John Hollingsworth Monty Norman |
| Cinematography | Jack Asher |
| Edited by | Eric Boyd-Perkins James Needs |
Production company | Hammer Film Productions |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
Release date | 24 October 1960 (UK) |
Running time | 88 minutes |
| Country | United States United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | £146,417 |
In contrast to other film versions, Jekyll was portrayed as a rather bland and faceless person, while Hyde was presented as suave and handsome. This reflects director Fisher's belief in what critics (such as biographer Wheeler Winston Dixon) called "the charm of evil". The film is also unusual in that it is one of the few where the Jekyll/Hyde character does not die in the story's conclusion.
The film was released in North America to theaters under the titles House of Fright and Jekyll's Inferno and on American TV under its original British title.
Screenplay
Dr. Henry Jekyll's wife, Kitty, cheats on him with his friend Paul Allen (who hounds money from Jekyll). Ignoring the warnings of his colleague and friend Dr. Ernst Littauer, Jekyll concocts a chemical potion which he hopes will help him learn the depths of the human mind.
By testing the potion on himself, he transforms into Mr. Edward Hyde, a young and handsome, but also murderous and lecherous man. Soon, Hyde becomes bored with conventional debauchery and when his eyes catch Kitty, he decides he must have her. When Kitty rejects him, Hyde rapes her and leaves her unconscious. When Kitty wakes up in the bed, she immediately notices that Hyde has scratched her neck in various places. Distressed, Kitty walks over to the table where she finds a note written to her. When Kitty goes into the other room looking for Paul, she looks in to find out that her lover has been bitten by a venomous snake. To Kitty's misfortune, Paul is dead. Kitty walks over to the patio, puts her leg over the balcony, covers her ears in response to the loud music playing from the party and allows herself to fall off the balcony and through the glass roof covering the party guests. Hyde frames his other self for these crimes.
The next day, Jekyll is horrified to learn of what Hyde has done. After speaking to his other half via a mirror, Jekyll turns into Hyde out of control. Hyde then kills a man by shooting him in the back and sets his body up on a desk. Hyde then sets fire to the laboratory as police show up at Jekyll's laboratory looking for him. Via a window, Hyde pretends that Jekyll is trying to kill him as the building burns. After escaping the building, Hyde claims Jekyll tried to kill Hyde and ended up shooting himself due to madness as the innocent man and Jekyll's lab burns.
A few hours later, Hyde is summoned to the police station where he and some officers discuss the crime. After declaring Dr. Jekyll responsible for the crimes, Hyde tries to leave the building, but at the last minute Jekyll fights him from the inside and takes over again. As Dr. Jekyll sits on a bench, looking as sickly as ever, he is surrounded by astonished people and arrested for his alleged crimes.
- Paul Massie as Dr. Henry Jekyll and Mr. Edward Hyde
- Dawn Addams as Kitty Jekyll
- Christopher Lee as Paul Allen
- David Kossoff as Dr. Littauer
- Francis de Wolff as Inspector
- Norma Marla as Maria
- Magda Miller as Sphinx Girl (uncredited)
- Oliver Reed as Nightclub Bouncer (uncredited)
- William Kendall as Clubman (uncredited)
- Helen Goss as Nanny (uncredited)
- Pauline Shepherd as Prostitute (uncredited)
- Percy Cartwright as Coroner (uncredited)
- Joe Robinson as Corinthian (uncredited)
- Arthur Lovegrove as Cabby (uncredited)
- Felix Felton as First Gambler (uncredited)
The film was to star Louis Jourdan.
Reviews were mixed to negative. The Monthly Film Bulletin of the UK wrote that the film "may be forgiven for tampering with a classic, but not for doing so with such a depressing lack of either wit or competence ... Silliness, in fact, has got the better of the film to such an extent that even its most calculatedly vicious episodes appear only mildly grotesque. The production, which uses up colour film lavishly on such episodes as a cancan sequence, is otherwise hard-up for ideas." Variety gave the film a good review, praising Paul Massie for an "interesting performance" and Jack Asher for "colorful and sure" camerawork. Eugene Archer of The New York Times called the film "lurid", and Massie "frankly ridiculous." Harrison's Reports graded the film as "Fair", adding, "Horror fans will hardly be scared by this well-mounted British import ... Paul Massie does the best he can in the poorly written twin role."
The film lost Hammer an estimated ?30,000.
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