Review #2602: The Son of Dr. Jekyll.
Cast:
Louis Hayward (Edward Jekyll / Dr. Henry Jekyll and Mr. Edward Hyde), Jody Lawrance (Lynn Utterson), Alexander Knox (Dr. Curtis Lanyon), Lester Matthews (Sir John Utterson), Gavin Muir (Richard Daniels), Paul Cavanagh (Inspector Stoddard), and Rhys Williams (Michaels) Directed by Seymour Friedman.Review:
I suppose it makes sense to have at least one movie start off as an outlandish joke. Jack Pollexfen and Mortimer Braus came up with the idea initially when talking about outlandish film titles that had them wondering if they could knock out a quick story involving, well, the son of Jekyll. They got Columbia Pictures to buy into it, although they would not be involved with the production. You might recognize Pollexfen for his work on such films as The Man from Planet X, which he co-wrote and co-produced; he had decided to become a writer in the 1940s after initially working as a reporter that eventually saw him transition to low-budget filmmaking. The third writer involved with the film was Edward Huebsch, who ended up at the tail end of his writing career because of his ties to the League of American Writers that had him included on the Hollywood blacklist (he attempted a comeback with co-writing the adaptation of Twilight's Last Gleaming in 1977). Incidentally, Pollexfen ended up doing a few other "continuation" scripts, as he also did Return to Treasure Island (1954) to go along with writing and producing Daughter of Dr. Jekyll [1957]. He continued to do films such as Indestructible Man [1956] until his last production in 1964. For a cheapie production, Columbia got Seymour Friedman, a journeyman director who made a handful of movies in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Well, when you make a movie that takes place in the "aftermath" of a story, you might as well go all-in in the absurdity: a title card talks about the "climax [of] his brutality" in Mr. Hyde killing his wife and running down the street from a mob only to be trapped up top in the mansion that sees him fall to his death. Of course, there is a poor new orphan in 1860 that needs to be kept secret in his origins with regards to a trusteeship until it comes to a pass in 1890 with a man who wants to set the record straight on his father and oh damn it, this is just cribbing a bit from Son of Frankenstein from ol' 1939, isn't it? A good chunk of it is Hayward trying to navigate the game of public perception of being the son of someone associated as a monster. The bounds of prejudice (which range from a rat reporter trying to grab a story or kids throwing rocks) naturally covers a select group of ground before the mystery eventually unravels that basically loops the story back to where we started in a town ready to get the torches ready back in the old mansion. All of this comes for a movie where you can only drag out a mystery for so long (78 minutes) before you go, "well, there's only so many people worth checking...", and it all builds up to a very mediocre movie. Hayward had a steady enough career (thrillers, adventures, dramas) to where I'm sure calling him a discount Basil Rathbone would not be the worst thing in the world for a movie that he just never lifts up beyond wannabee redemption stuff that goes in one ear and out the other; it isn't even worth seeing him paired with Lawrance as the would-be married couple, and to say nothing of Knox and whatever you call his "motivations". In a different movie, perhaps in a different time, it could've been one of those experiments worth trying out to see how horrific the world can be when wrapped up in prejudice and people willing to profit off of it...but it all feels flat, as if nobody could be bothered to make a compelling toady to want to them humbled or added to the body count. Bland jerks just aren't enough to deliver any kind of atmosphere for a movie, pure and simple. As a whole, this readily available movie isn't exactly on the high-end of the totem pole of Jekyll & Hyde movies, but its curious little moments ensure that things could always be better and most surely could be worse too.
Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.
