Review: The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll

Paul Massie stars as Dr. Jekyll, a recluse who is obsessed with experimenting with the dark side of human nature. He wants to see if there’s a way to separate the good and bad sides of ourselves, and wonders whether or not eradicating one’s darker side is actually a good thing. It’s a dangerous territory he’s wading in, and his experiments do lead to bringing out his darker side, a completely different personality named Mr. Hyde. Where Jekyll is a dull, pasty-faced recluse, Hyde is the dashingly handsome life of the party. Hyde also allows Jekyll to eventually indulge his darker urges free of restraint, including plotting revenge on his duplicitous, frequently-in-debt best friend Paul Allen (Christopher Lee) and cheating wife Kitty (Dawn Addams). Jekyll still lurks inside of the same body that contains Hyde, but will he ever want to suppress his evil side or is he too far gone for that? Francis De Wolff appears late as a Scotland Yard detective.

With a cast that includes Christopher Lee and a young-ish Oliver Reed (later to star in “Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype”, for The Cannon Group if you can believe it), it’s somewhat peculiar that Hammer Studios decided to cast the lesser-known actor Paul Massie in the dual roles of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for this 1960 version of the oft-filmed Robert Louis Stevenson horror tale. Directed by Terence Fisher (“The Curse of Frankenstein”, “Horror of Dracula”) and scripted by Wolf Mankowitz (the spoof-y 60s version of “Casino Royale”), the ill-equipped Massie is pretty much the only issue with this rock-solid adaptation. Someone came up with the idea of having Massie get heavily made up to play the relatively boring and morose Dr. Jekyll, and the makeup makes poor Massie look like a Cro-Magnon man. His rather stiff performance as Jekyll also doesn’t help, but seriously he looks like a guy wearing someone else’s face over his own face (Because he essentially is). It’s nice that they’ve successfully hidden the actor behind the visage, but it still looks every bit a disguise (if that makes sense). This is the guy they chose over Lee (who wanted to play it)? It’s nice that they still gave Lee a role here, but I can’t think how Lee wouldn’t have been a better choice for the dual role. Thankfully, Lee would get his chance (albeit with different character names) in the later “I, Monster”.

 

Massie is a lot more fun as Hyde at least, albeit extremely hammy. One of the interesting ideas at play here is that Hyde, by comparison to the bearded and pale Jekyll, is clean-shaven and his personality more outwardly charming. Think Jude Law with a touch of young Michael Caine. Hammy or not, the struggle between Jekyll and Hyde is really interesting here. They’re shown to be very different yet ultimately the same person, and it’s probably one of the more interesting versions of the idea, despite Massie’s dullard, phony deep-voiced Jekyll interpretation. In fact, it’s the only version I’ve seen where it makes a good case for why Jekyll would keep turning into Hyde, other than mere drug addiction: Jekyll is boring, being Hyde here seems so much more fun. Sure, he’s clearly a mad, bad individual, but with Christopher Lee fooling around with his lady love Dawn Addams, he’s also able to use the Hyde persona to plot revenge on the scheming pair. It’s clever and interesting stuff, especially a genius bit where Jekyll has pretty much been responsible for someone’s death, not Hyde. Except it is Hyde, because they’re one and the same. You’ll know what I mean when you see the film.

 

Picking up some of Massie’s slack, Dawn Addams and Christopher Lee (in apparently one of his favourite parts) are a terrific pair of thoroughly rotten cheaters. These two are aware that they’re both horrible people and yet they carry on together nonetheless. They thoroughly deserve one another and you can’t wait for these two to get their just desserts. Perhaps Lee (who makes for an hilarious drunken cad) got the better deal of it here, because Paul Allen is by far one of his best roles of the 1960s. That’s a young-ish Oliver Reed at the dance, a mere cameo but perhaps a taste of things yet to come for the actor. The film’s best asset is a terrific music score by Monty Norman (“Dr. No”) and David Heneker (a songwriter and lyricist). The production design is marvellous too, as is the costuming – Addams wears a gorgeous pale blue coat that is to die for. Her hairstyle is a constant scene-stealer, too.

 

A wildly uneven dual lead performance by Paul Massie (and a too-late appearance by Scotland Yard) aside, this is an interesting and well-mounted Hammer adaptation of the well-known tale. I think it's superior to Hammer’s “Curse of Frankenstein” and “Curse of the Werewolf”, but not “The Horror of Dracula” or “The Mummy”. It’s a fair bit better than Hammer’s other version of the tale, the later “Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde” as well, though Ralph Bates and Martine Beswick are vastly superior to Massie in the title roles. Christopher Lee and Dawn Addams are a wonderfully rotten pair of scheming lovers, though the film would’ve been even better with a superior lead actor and more convincing makeup. Still definitely worth a look.

 

Rating: B-