Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Alastair Reid directs a very arty BBC dramatisation of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. A portly David Hemmings stars as Dr Jekyll examining the duality of man.

This doctor visits the slums of London and the whiorehouses within it. He has devised a strange concoction that has created an alter ego.

Mr Hyde is a younger more virile man. One who is short tempered and attracts the attention of Ann Coggeshall (Lisa Harrow.) She is Jekyll's fiance but seems to be enchanted by this blackhearted blaggard.

Shot on video, this is not a television movie but more of a hybrid drama and stage play.

Reid with his lead actor Hemmings has gone for something different. When we first see Hyde, he talks to the camera while adopting a strange stance.

The adaptation is not wholly successful. The ending was weak and drawn out.

I thought it was too uneven and arty. It does get its social points across. Poverty in London, women and girls driven to prostitution.

I'm a huge fan of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and I just counted that I've seen, this one included, 13 movie versions of the story. There are many great ones like the 1931 classic starring Frederik March, Jean Renoir's French film "Testament of Dr. Cordelier", an American TV film with Jack Palance, "I, Monster" with Christopher Lee, the strangely erotic "Dr. Jekyll and his women", Julia Roberts/John Malkovich film "Mary Reilly" and Mark Redfield's recent adaptations from 2002. These are all very fine Jekyll and Hyde films.

This film from 1981, a BBC production, however is not. The plot is incredibly slow, actors bored or uninterested in working and there is no chemistry between their characters. The film is lacking music in many scenes and when there is some it's enough to drive you to coma. During the transformation scenes director seems to be thinking he is doing some weird art film, or at least that's the only explanation I could come up with.

The only thing I found even slightly interesting in the film is David Hemmings(Profondo Rosso) who plays the title character. This time Hyde is left without make up, whereas Jekyll has been made old and over weighted. I thought this was good since in some versions the physical difference between Jekyll and Hyde is so small you can't help but think: "Why don't they get they're the same person?" Hemmings did all he could but it sadly wasn't enough to save this mess.

Belongs to the same category as "Edge of Sanity" starring Anthony Perkins and Michael Caine's "Jekyll & Hyde". Stevenson fans, be warned!

Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson wrote his novel "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde" in 1886, a stage adaptation followed in 1887 and then it was first filmed in 1908. Countless other films were to follow, I have seen a great deal of them, this version is probably the most boring to date. The late David Hemmings, a fine actor, plays both Jekyll (with a Scottish accent and sporting mutton chops) and his evil alter ego Edward Hyde. Instead of turning into a hideous brute Hyde is actually a young and handsome man, an interesting though not original idea as Hammer had already done this back in 1960. This is a BBC film that looks more like a stage play though there are plenty of exterior scenes. I enjoyed seeing the dilapidated London Docklands, I can remember going on a school trip and seeing them. Jekyll's house stands on the banks of the Thames, look closely and you can see modern office blocks! Also in the cast are Diana Dors, punk singer Toyah (who I didn't recognise until reading the closing credits) and Gretchen Franklin, best known for playing Ethel in the long running soap "Eastenders". At just under two hours the running time is far too long, the film is too talky, it is very boring and lacking in horror. In fact the most frightening sight is that of Jekyll's comb-over, ha ha! Hyde's perverse sexuality is touched upon when he belittles a 14 year old girl prostitute, then later on he abuses a rent boy, these are the only really unsettling scenes. Much of the camera work and out of place synthesizer musical score make it look and sound more 1980 than 1880's. The dull and grainy print that Talking Pictures TV (UK) screened didn't help my viewing pleasure either, though as always I am grateful to them for screening these old and largely forgotten movies. There are many far better versions of this classic tale available, I would only recommend this one to people who are Jekyll/Hyde completists.

Silly me, I actually purchased this version of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" without knowing it was a BBC presentation. The real drawing power here was that David Hemmings was the lead and I couldn't wait to see him in the role.

Now, I might be severely lacking in sophistication but I usually find these BBC versions of famous movies extremely boring. They're pretentious, fake looking and usually very drab. For the most part this movie was no exception.

I did like Hemmings's performance, especially when he transformed to Mr. Hyde and wasn't wearing all that aging and weight make-up. Hemmings was a very good actor who didn't get too many good roles during his lifetime.

As for "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" I'd recommend either the Spencer Tracy version from 1941 or the Michael Caine version by David Wickes.

This is among the better and more stylish versions of the classic horror tale, but one I was only aware of via a review of its R2 DVD on the estimable "Sight & Sound" magazine! Other TV renditions I have watched were those made in 1955, 1959, 1968, 1969, 1973 and 1990 – the first and fourth of these during the current Halloween Challenge. Like the 1960 Hammer adaptation THE TWO FACES OF DR. JEKYLL, Hyde is the handsomer, leaner persona – with the doctor's features hidden under large whiskers, grey hair and a rather stout figure (the latter would plague leading man David Hemmings himself in real life, as well as guest star Diana Dors!); his alter ego, then, is not stereotypically evil and brutish, more the haughty, callous sort with a nasty streak running in him. The storyline is opened up to encompass most of the mores of Victorian society, inflating the running-time to nearly two hours, and making its affinity with Oscar Wilde's "The Picture Of Dorian Gray" all the more pronounced. Curiously, Jekyll drinks a minimal amount of the potion to transform into Hyde but then the latter injects himself to revert back!; as for the unassisted metamorphosis, this occurs overnight while in bed (as in R.L. Stevenson's original) – also lifted directly from the novella is his unprovoked assault on an old gentleman (played here by Desmond Llewellyn of 007's Q fame!). The girl Hyde torments (to the point of suicide, again a' la DORIAN GRAY) is a housemaid, played by singer Toyah Wilcox(!), in Jekyll's own employ – as in MARY REILLY (1996), which I almost included in this ongoing marathon; other notable cast members are Ian Bannen as Lawyer Utterson and Clive Swift as Dr. Lanyon.