What a strange and bizarre film; especially for
1971 when the concept of gender fluidity didn't really exist. Male and female
occupying the same body; fighting for dominance. If this Hammer film was
made today, there is little doubt that it would go a step further and have
both the male and female indulge in sex. But back in 1971 that would have
brought down the censors and the morality league, but it gets damn close.
Hammer had made a Jekyll and Hyde film in the 1960 The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll.
That too was an unusual interpretation of the classic Robert Louis Stevenson
novella. In it Hyde is just a charming toxic sociopath rather than a transformed
monster. To once again approach this novella, Hammer had to go further and
scriptwriter Brian Clemens and director Roy Ward Baker (Quatermass and the
Pit, The Vampire Lovers) certainly do that by upping the violence, adding
some historical figures and doing a gender reveal.
Was the character of Dr. Jekyll the first
mad scientist put to page? If so, many owe him a debt of gratitude. Here
he is working on vaccines to combat various diseases - one super vaccine
to combat many - ahead of its time, but his friend Professor Robertson (Gerald
Sim) convinces him that he will die before his work is done. Nice going Professor.
We could have had vaccines long before we did. Instead, Jekyll begins looking
for an elixir to extend his life. This never ends up well in films. He determines
that the secret is female hormones. But to experiment he needs female body
parts. Fresh ones. No problem in 19th century England where everything is
for sale. He is put into contact with the pair of Burke and Hare who sell
cadavers. After killing them. They were real life characters who murdered
an estimated sixteen women before being caught.
When they are, Jekyll has no other supplier
and so being the resourceful guy he was and being handy with a knife, he
starts killing them himself. He finally has enough hormones to make the potion
and swallows it. In one of the great scenes of camera trickery the transformation
takes place. The camera is behind Jekyll (clearly Ralph Bates) and swings
around without a cut to show him facing the mirror. Except it isn't him.
It is Martine Beswick. The great Beswick. She already had a fanbase from
her appearances in From Russia with Love, One Million Years BC and Prehistoric
Women. This role cemented that. She is majestic in her stature and cruelty.
In an astonishing scene, Jekyll isn't horrified
that he has turned into a female. He revels in it. Touching his/her naked
breasts. Smiling seductively into the mirror. Buying corsets and red female
outfits. And as a woman, it is much easier to approach women in the foggy
London streets. And kill them. As Jack the Ripper. Though historically, Ripper
and Hare were about fifty years and a few hundred miles apart. Susan Brodrick
as the upstairs neighbor who loves Jekyll and Lewis Flander as her brother
who lusts after Mrs. Hyde. It has perverse possibilities.
