Doctor Jekyll y el Hombre Lobo

"Dr. Jekyll and the Wolfman" deals with Waldermar Daninsky (Paul Naschy) who helped by Justine (Shirley Corrigan) searches for a cure to his full moon craziness by visiting the descendant (Jack Taylor as Henry Jekill supported by his helper Sandra played by Mirta Miller) of the infamous Dr. Jekyll from Robert Louis Stevenson novel . What ensues next is a lover's triangle , and a nasty Mr. Hyde who roams modern London and walks through at night in Soho streets and becomes into a werewolf on the disco floor .

Acceptable Werewolf movie with the unforgettable Waldemar Daninsky-Jacinto Molina , under pseudonym Paul Naschy . Continental Europe's biggest horror star again with his classic character and frightening to viewer . He returns as El Hombre Lobo for the umpteenth time and once again battles enemies . It is a B series entertainment with abundant sensationalistic scenes and a Naif style . The movie has a bit of ridiculous gore with loads of blood similar to tomato and is occasionally an engaging horror movie full of slow-moving fights , attacks , beheading and several other things . Naschy's portrayal of the anguished and sympathetic werewolf Daninsky -here along with a magnificent acting as savage sadistic Mr Hyde- became his signature part and consolidated his enduring cult status as a bona-fide horror icon and he spent more time in make-up . Jacinto Molina Aka Paul Naschy , who recently passed away , was actor , screenwriter and director of various films about the personage based on fictitious character , the Polish count Waldemar Daninsky . Jacinto often cited seeing Frankenstein and the Wolfman (1943) in a theater at age 11 as a seminal inspirational experience , his later movies would be filled with references to it . In 1967 he wrote the script for first film about Waldemar , it was ¨The mark of the Wolfman¨ by Enrique Eguiluz ; he was forced , out of necessity , to play the lead role of tormented werewolf Waldermar Daninsky after Lon Chaney Jr. turned it down . Later on , he reprised this character in over a dozen subsequent followings . As Molina went on the successful ¨Night of Walpurgis¨ by Leon Klimovsky , ¨Fury of the Wolfman¨ , ¨Doctor Jekill and the Wolfman¨ ,¨The return of the Walpurgis¨, ¨Howl of the devil¨, ¨The beast and the magic sword (1982)¨ that was filmed in Japan and finally ¨Licántropo (1998).

A talented athlete , Naschy played soccer for the school team and was a weightlifter who became the lightweight champion of Spain in 1958. Moreover , Paul penned Western pulp novels under the pseudonym Jack Mills and worked as an illustrator who did album cover art for a Spanish record label . Thanks to his muscular build , Naschy was able to break into the motion picture business in the early 1960s as an uncredited extra in such films as ¨El Cid¨, ¨55 days at Pekin¨ and the biblical epic ¨King of Kings¨ (1961) along with a Spaghetti , ¨Day of Anger¨ . Other significant horror figures Paul played were the Mummy , Jack the Ripper , Dracula ; as his performance as the Prince of Darkness in ¨Count Dracula's great love¨ (1973) was one of his personal favorites , the Hunchback , the Frankenstein Monster, the Phantom of the Opera , and even the Devil . Naschy made his directorial debut with Inquisition (1978) . Furthermore , Naschy made some Giallos such as "A Dragonfly for Each Corpse" , "The Killer Is One of Thirteen" and ¨Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll¨. The films , ¨El Caminante¨ and ¨El Aullido del Diablo¨ or "Howl of the Devil"(1987) were two of Paul's most personal projects and finest artistic achievements.

In ¨Doctor Jekill and the Wolfman¨ , Paul Naschy returns as Waldemar for the sixth time , Paul was such a perfectionist that he didn't have a stand-in, even for the lighting , as he did everything himself . Paul was a very serious man , though an introvert , always practicing his lines , his faces , and make-up . In the film appears a numerous secondary cast who starred innumerable films of Spaghetti/Paella Western and horror genres during the 60s and 70 such as Jack Taylor , Mirta Miller , Luis Induni , José Marco , Luis Gaspar and Barta Barri .

Creepy and eerie musical score by Anton Garcia Abril who composed the ¨Templar Zombies¨ saga by Amando De Ossorio . Adequate cinematography by Francisco Fraile shot on location in Soho , Big Ben , Houses of Parliament , Westminster , Piccadilly Circus , Trafalgar Square , London , England , UK and Madrid , Spain . The motion picture was professionally directed by Leon Klimovski . Mr. Klimovsky was a great director and in this movie he'd be shouting on his megaphone all the time . Leon was very close to the actor Jacinto Molina , they had a very strong friendship , and would always be talking business together . The flick will appeal to Paul Naschy fans and terror genre enthusiast . Rating : 6 , passable and amusing .

This is the first Waldemar Daninsky movie I've seen, even though it is (the box says) the fifth in a series (perhaps IMDb's years for the titles are off?). I bought it primarily because I've liked all the other Mondo Macabro DVDs I've bought.

It's also the first Paul Naschy movie I've seen, or at least the first one I've seen while knowing him to be a big Spanish horror star.

A couple return to the husband's homeland so he can visit his parents' graves. Unfortunately, the graveyard they're in was abandoned during World War II, and is neglected, rumored to be haunted, and a place where murderous bandits can be found. It's also located near the Black Castle, where a monster lives. The monster is Daninsky, who turns into a wolf-man when the moon is full. As a wolf-man, he kills people or bites chunks of flesh out of them. As Daninsky, well, he kills people too, but he has more of a choice as to who he attacks: he only goes after bad guys.

Daninsky gets taken to see Dr. Jekyll, the grandson of the infamous one, in England. Dr. Jekyll has a plan to cure Daninsky's lycanthropy, but I confess I did not understand it. It involved turning Daninsky into Mr. Hyde, and then somehow having the Mr. Hyde and Werewolf in Daninsky battle it out. That isn't what seems to happen, so perhaps I'm way off. I thought it peculiar that Daninsky turns into Mr. Hyde - Mr. Hyde had been the evil part of Dr. Jekyll. Daninsky's evil side might have been similar, but identical, and they give him the same name...?

It is fairly entertaining, and I'm curious to see some other Daninsky werewolf movies now (this wasn't one of Nachy's more favorite ones), and perhaps some more of Nachy's other horror movies. The DVD is good, has some nice extras including an interview with Nachy and a text covering the short history of Spanish horror movies, and the DVD will be staying in my collection.

It seems he's played the Waldemar Daninsky werewolf character in about thirteen movies, of which perhaps only four are readily available (through out of print videotapes and cheap poor quality DVDs), and the original is not one of them! It would seem a box set is needed, though I have not heard rumors of one.

The sixth of the 13 Waldemar Daninsky / Wolfman films by Paul Naschy. In this film he plays three roles. He is also Mr. Hyde.

In this tale, the Count saves Justine (Shirley Corrigan) from the clutches of three slobbering rapists who have just murdered her husband. He consoles the grieving widow, and they spirit off to London just ahead of an angry mob of villagers. They seek out Dr. Jekyll (Jack Taylor) to cure his lycanthropy.

Unfortunately, a nurse (Marisol Delgado) and a streetwalker (María Luisa Tovar) are ravaged by the werewolf before the formula can be perfected.

Things take a nasty turn and the Count is turned into Mr. Hyde. He is even more evil than the werewolf.

The story ends as all werewolf movies do, leaving you to wonder how he will return seven more times.

The fifth entry in the Waldemar Daninsky series is actually the eleventh Paul Naschy movie I have watched; for the record, I have four more titles featuring the Euro-Cult icon lined-up for this Halloween challenge. This is one of his better vehicles that I have come across, though still essentially flawed; in it he plays no less than three roles (though all inhabit the same body) i.e. Daninsky, his werewolf alter-ego and, in a bizarre turn-of-events, R.L. Stevenson's famous evil 'creation' Mr. Hyde! The copy I watched – culled from Mondo Macabro's R2 DVD – presents the film in its clothed variant prepared for Spanish consumption; still, the level of violence is considerable, with the werewolf seen munching on torn flesh and similarly gory effects. Jess Franco regular Jack Taylor appears as Dr. Jekyll and rather than have him turn into the primitive Hyde, he injects Daninsky with his grandfather's notorious serum in an attempt to cure his lycanthropy! The film is colorful and generally fun (clichés and all) but director Klimovsky does not quite take full advantage of the possibilities set out by the premise at hand: for one thing, his Hyde (amusingly bringing to mind John Belushi!) is nowhere near the monster he is depicted in most other versions of the tale, while a transformation from man to wolf inside a London discotheque (the setting for the film's latter half is present-day i.e. 1970s London) is completely thrown away as he not only fails to attack anyone but is himself almost trampled in the commotion that ensues! The plot also involves a couple of good-looking girls: a blonde, with whom both Naschy and Taylor are in love (though she opts to marry a third – and much older – man), as well as a brunette, who is Dr. Jekyll's vindictive and deranged assistant.

I think this is the fifth Paul Naschy werewolf film, but who knows. This one starts out with an English fellow heading out for Transylvania to visit his parent's graves, with his cute wife in tow, only for the both of them to discover a horribly burned man lurking about the place. This film details the seventies approach to disability when the wife starts screaming bloody murder and the English guy throws a brick at the guy.

At a local bar, the barman describes the entire area as being full of thieves and cutthroats and says maybe it's a bad idea to go to the old creepy cemetery that's next to the old creepy castle that the local monster lives in, but off they go anyway, which results in three local brothers robbing their car, killing the English guy, and trying to rape the Justine, his wife. I say try because Paul Naschy turns up and brutally murders two of the brothers (one by dropping a huge rock on the guy's face!).

Paul of course is a werewolf with a witch sidekick and when this robber guy starts going on about revenge and involving the locals it doesn't turn out right for anyone, as more villagers end up dead, the rest get out the pitchforks and torches, and Paul has to high tail it to England so the plot can get even more stupid. I also noted that for some reason one villager had a gigantic pitchfork that was much larger than the others. Must have been compensating for something.

Now Justine has quickly got over her husband being murdered and is in love with Paul, so she goes to Dr Jekyll to get him cured. In a plot move that makes virtually no sense whatsoever, Jekyll proposes that they inject Paul with some injection that will make Mister Hyde manifest in Paul (?) so that they can then isolate the evil in him and kill him. So not only has Paul got to put up with the werewolf stuff, now he's turned into a sex-crazed hedonist too!

This might have actually worked out if Dr Jekyll didn't have a jealous female sidekick who wasn't happy with Jekyll trying to help out an unrequited love. Next thing you know Hyde is out rampaging around London, but then again you only get to see that if you have the uncut version as it involves ravaging hookers and whipping Justine.

Best thing about this film (apart from the crazy storyline) was that any time you started to think it would get boring - it didn't! I thought things would slow down a lot once Paul got to London for his cure, but then, in the lift on the way up to his appointment, the lift broke down and trapped him with a nurse until the moon rose, causing a werewolf rampage! I love these films!

It doesn't skimp on the gore and the only thing missing from the Mill Creek version is the nudity*, which you're not going to miss anyway if you watching an endless list of these films. Naschy's Mr Hyde was funny too, including the way he just exits the film without any fuss.

*I'm talking crap - it's also missing the opening credits.