Daughter of Dr. Jekyll.

Review #2603: Daughter of Dr. Jekyll.

Cast:

Gloria Talbott (Janet Smith), John Agar (George Hastings), Arthur Shields (Dr. Lomas), John Dierkes (Jacob), Molly McCard (Maggie), Martha Wentworth (Mrs. Merchant), Marjorie Stapp (Woman Getting Dressed), Rita Green (Lucy), and Marel Page (Young Man in Woods)

Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer (#797 - People on Sunday, #803 - Detour, #943 - The Man from Planet X, #1364 - Bluebeard, #2058 - Strange Illusion, #2111 - The Black Cat)

Review: 

Oh, you're going to love their type of twist on the spawn of Dr. Jekyll, just sit tight. The 1950s was an odd time for Edgar G. Ulmer in the road to trying to stick around in making cheapie movies with plenty of variety that ranged from The Man from Planet X (1951). comedies such as St. Benny the Dip (1951) to Italian productions such as Hannibal (1959), with Ulmer's 1960s output seeing a double-header filmed in Dallas with The Amazing Transparent Man and Beyond the Time Barrier (1960). You might remember that Jack Pollexfen, who had worked with Ulmer with the aforementioned Planet X, previously worked with Mortimer Braus on cobbling up a story idea for what eventually became The Son of Dr. Jekyll (1951). So obviously a few years later he decided to make another loose "continuation" from Robert Louis Stevenson's original novella. Pollexfen both wrote and produced this film (as one does). The movie was shot in an old mansion in Los Angeles; true to cheapie form, an establishing shot of the house and car coming up was done in miniature (as for the girl-monster scene, it apparently was shot in some burned over woods with ultraviolet film). It was released by Allied Artists in 1957 as part of a double-bill with The Cyclops. For Talbott's part, she apparently was quoted as being "amazingly surprised" by the final result, while Agar stated his role was strictly for the money that he just didn't believe it.

For whatever reason, the movie's prologue and epilogue basically go the same way, where it tells us about the death of Dr. Henry Jekyll and then asking, "Are you sure?" It's pretty corny, sure, but there are for more odd forces at foot. There are attempts at atmosphere with a bit of fog and a bit of attempted trickery within its 71-minute runtime about what lies beneath basement of lab stuff...and, well, a werewolf. Yes, really. In the same year where you could see hypnosis connected to someone possibly turning into a werewolf with I Was a Teenage Werewolf, you could try a different type of hokum here, complete with having to see if our hero will meet the same fate for werewolves (one where father Jekyll drank a potion to be who he was) in...getting staked through the chest. It basically is a goof-fest that you maybe check out when you have absolutely nothing better to do that may provide a few chuckles in its execution within such a limited space of time and money for a director that probably deserved better. Talbott is tasked with such a strange role of tension for who she is meant to be as a twentysomething that barely has their own name and a dubious sense of agency (trying to marry that cardboard cutout is one thing, being wrapped in fears about nightmares is another). Shields plays the cloying authority figure to basically the bare minimum for when the movie does its little twist that wouldn't do anybody that many favors when having to be depicted as a goofy wolf in yet another Pollexfen production with an evil guardian wanting to get the estate (for which it barely looks like it would be much to inherit at all). Hell, if you go by what the twist says, who's to say that Dr. Jekyll was even a nut at all, since I don't seem to remember "Mr. Hyde" being mentioned once. As a whole, it's a cheap curiosity that is basically held by Ulmer and company for the bare minimum of horror entertainment with the odds and ends of trying to be creative in such a limited format. It's a middle of the road movie that is marginally more interesting as a "continuation" movie than The Son of Dr. Jekyll but not nearly as worthwhile beyond calling it mediocre and moving on to the next oldie to wonder about.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

I Married a Monster from Outer Space.

Review #2428: I Married a Monster from Outer Space.

Cast: 

Tom Tryon (Bill Farrell), Gloria Talbott (Marge Bradley Farrell), Peter Baldwin (Officer Frank Swanson), Robert Ivers (Harry Phillips), Chuck Wassil (Ted Hanks), Valerie Allen (Francine, a Hooker), Ty Hardin (Mac Brody), Ken Lynch (Dr. Wayne), John Eldredge (Police Captain H.B. Collins), Alan Dexter (Sam Benson), James Anderson (Weldon), Jean Carson (Helen Alexander Benson), Jack Orrison (Officer Schultz), Steve London (Charles Mason), and Max "Slapsie Maxie" Rosenbloom (Max Grad) Produced and Directed by Gene Fowler Jr (#1912 - I Was a Teenage Werewolf)

Review: 

"This was strictly an exploitation picture. But there again I tried to put characterization into the monsters. The so-called monsters, the aliens, were very sad people. One of the things I've always found is that you've got to accept the premise, regardless of how ridiculous it is. If you accept the thing as very realistic and very honest, then you can come up with very honest performances and make a fairly honest picture out of it."

Sometimes audiences just don't know what they are missing. Released from Paramount Pictures, the movie ended up as being the second movie on a double feature with the independent acquisition that happened to be in color: The Blob (1958). The script was done by Louis Vittes, and it was Fowler who suggested coming up with an eye-catching title, although he stated in later years of hating the final title (he was interviewed for the film a bit in this book here). As producer and director, Fowler noted that the studio heads insisted that the monsters have a glowing effect, for which he would serve as a designer. It is the kind of movie that could be done with a bit of foliage and wire on a budget of $125,000, but somehow, when compared to The Blob in audience screenings, that movie tested better and therefore was slotted to be the "A" film on the double feature circuit. It may interest you to know that the movie featured the services of John P. Fulton for its special effects: he did movies that could range from The Invisible Man Returns (1940) to Wonder Man (1945) to The Ten Commandments (1956) (in total he was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won three times). This was the second and last horror film Fowler Jr made (he mostly made crime dramas, although he spent far more time as an editor), as you might remember he directed I Was a Teenage Werewolf the previous year. I don't understand the hubbub that arose about the title. 1949 had a movie called I Married a Communist, what is so weird about a movie title like this that is wholly accurate? The movie basically seems like a cousin of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (well okay that movie was a bit different, since the invasion involved emotionless copies and plenty of pods whereas this movie has a spaceship...somewhere) so what exactly did one expect, "Husbands From Space" as a title? 

Honestly, I found this to be a curious little movie to see play out in paranoia but also in tragedy, since you could construe it as such depending on who you find to be the true lead. On the one hand, you have a woman who has a sinking realization that the "honeymoon period" really can just evaporate quickly when being with someone because the real guy they fell in love is in a slab somewhere. But, perhaps most importantly on the other hand, you have a movie with a being who is desperate to keep their race alive and in the process of that desperation finds something shocking: the capability to feel love rather than simply trying to breed (there are probably some guys who might treat a woman like they were stock, incidentally). Tryon was a Paramount contract man since 1955, although he mostly was known for television work more than say, his work as a star, and he apparently was not too keen on starring in this film. Years later, he became a horror/mystery writer with works such as The Other (1971).* You could contend that his performance is a bit wooden (Fowler discussed that assessment, for example), but I would argue that seems to fit the movie to a T if you really get down to it: this is a person who goes around at strange times to meet people rather than be around his wife. Sure, the one scene he has before being taken by the beings (as represented in a composite shot) probably doesn't help this argument, but most of the time you are watching someone that is slowly less inhibited by who they are. It works well with Talbott in that awkward sense of tension and paranoia, because who among us hasn't had a sinking feeling that the people you know are just a bit too strange today? The 78-minute runtime is fairly adept at getting to the point of having one get growing paranoia as the tension becomes more and more clear not only of a burgeoning invasion but of what could happen to folks having to be human longer and longer. There is a body count, with probably one of the odder deaths in quite a while coming from someone looking at a doll in a window before getting spooked to kill some scared passerby. The ending wraps everything up a bit conveniently (the woman who helped spur a posse of new fathers is told to go back home, but the big enemy of the aliens is dogs ripping out tubes), but at least it leaves folks to pause with the fact that a bunch of sexless dudes had been living in town for months. In that sense, what you have is a fairly honest and interesting movie, far better than just being the "B" side of a double feature and worth actual consideration of your time, having a few decent visuals for the time to go with a monster that is far more interesting than what you might expect in perspective for a worthwhile time.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

*Tryon died in 1991 as a result of stomach cancer, although he apparently had HIV at the time he died, per the executor of his estate, who disagreed with Tyron's partner about being quiet about the HIV part.

October begins. We'll try to have plenty of interesting horror films all throughout the month that has one hell of time for Halloween night and, well, Halloween The Week After: Year VII.