Review: Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde

 

Well-respected Dr. Pride (Bernie Casey) is trying to find a cure for liver disease, an illness his mother died from. He creates a special serum, and after a failed experiment on a patient, Hyde makes some changes and this time experiments on himself. Unfortunately, the serum turns him into a lighter-skinned homicidal monster targeting hookers. Rosalind Cash plays a fellow doctor, Marie O’Henry a hooker, Stu Gilliam an idiot pimp, and Ji-Tu Cumbuka a police detective.

 

The late, great Bernie Casey sure does have a wacky credits list when you look at it, doesn’t he? He was in a James Bond movie (The rogue “Never Say Never Again”), he turned up in silly comedies (“Spies Like Us”, “Revenge of the Nerds”, “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”, “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka”, the awful “Tomcats”), John Carpenter movies (“In the Mouth of Madness”), Scorsese movies (“Boxcar Bertha”), action movies (“Under Siege”, “Sharky’s Machine”), hell he was even in “The Man Who Fell to Earth” with David Bowie. Dude clearly liked to work. He also made numerous appearances in Blaxploitation films, including the terrific “Cleopatra Jones”, as well as this 1976 effort from director William Crain (the immortal “Blacula”) and screenwriter Larry LeBron (who has no further IMDb credits listed). No matter the type or quality of the film Mr. Casey appeared in, the ex-NFL player rarely if ever phoned in a performance or looked down on the project. He was all class in just about every film I’ve ever seen him in, and that’s the case here too. I thought he might have to strain a bit to hold that dignity and class in a film titled “Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde”. However, this turned out to be, like the somewhat similar “Blacula”, quite a bit better than it seemingly had any right to be.

 

Casey is immediately credible as a doctor, and that takes some doing given his female patients sure do seem to get their tits out in front of him awfully easily (Also hilarious, one of the patient rooms has a big poster of Ron O’Neal as Youngblood Priest in “Superfly”!). Personally I think he’s much more suited to wearing a white lab coat than some of the revolutionary or action man-type characters he played in “Cleopatra Jones” and “The Hit Man”. Meanwhile, the Stan Winston (“The Terminator”, “Predator”) makeup for Hyde is a lot better than the shit from “Blackenstein” and even “Blacula”, though Casey’s Hyde still doesn’t look like a white man, if that’s what Winston was going for. Still, I expected so much worse after the awful makeup in “Blackenstein”. The interesting thing here is that Dr. Pride (ugh) loses his moral compass rather quickly, whilst this film’s version of Hyde talks like regular Bernie Casey, only he also karate kicks the fuck out of people, including an uncredited Eddie Smith (who gets stunt credit, but surely he’s a visible enough presence on camera that he deserves an acting credit). Although the late Rosalind Cash isn’t utilised all that well, there is a rather good turn by Marie O’Henry as a prostitute, a far more interesting character. A bald Ji-Tu Cumbuka (a familiar face in the Blaxploitation subgenre) is pretty good playing a cop.

 

On the downside, Stu Gilliam gets far too much screen time as Silky the Pimp, an annoying character who adds nothing but irritation (I would’ve much preferred Sam Laws to have more screen time, if anything. He’s always fun). I also found the Johnny Pate (“Shaft in Africa”, “Bucktown”, the short-lived TV version of “Shaft”) score a bit insistent and disappointing. Meanwhile, some of the film’s dealings with race are…curious. The serum supposedly turns Dr. Pride white, but on the inside he’s clearly still a black man, so what does it say that this pillar of the black community is preying on African-American hookers and the like? And clever or not, the climax at Watts tower referencing “King Kong” is a little on the nose if you really think about it. Is there an extra layer of intelligence, humour, or subversiveness there that I’m missing? Perhaps. Still, I was thinking during a Blaxploitation film – thinking! How often does that happen? I’d say that’s a plus, ultimately.

 

I’m not shocked that Bernie Casey gives a good performance in this, however I’m a bit surprised that Bernie Casey gives a good performance in this. He didn’t need to bring his A-game to something silly like this, but like William Marshall in “Blacula”, Casey really does his best to elevate the schlocky material. Although Casey is the chief plus here, it’s actually a pretty enjoyable version of the basic Robert Louis Stevenson story and mostly for intentional reasons. That said, I still maintain that Bugs Bunny gave us the definitive “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”. Worth a look, you might just be surprised by how interesting and relatively serious-minded, this solid – if still extremely silly – exploitation effort is.

 

Rating: B-