Sun 15 May 2016
A Horror Movie Review: DAUGHTER OF DR. JEKYLL (1957).
Posted by Steve under Horror movies , Reviews[17] Comments
DAUGHTER OF DR. JEKYLL. Allied Artists, 1957. John Agar, Gloria Talbott, Arthur Shields, John Dierkes, Mollie McCard, Martha Wentworth. Director: Edgar G. Ullmer.
With a title like this, you can probably figure out a fully-formed plot synopsis of your own and have it come out awfully close to the one that powers this one along. Gloria Talbott plays the daughter of you know who, which I’m sure you’ve already guessed from the cast listing, but now as a orphan she goes by the name of Janet Smith. What she does not know is that on her 21st birthday, she will inherit a large estate.
Her guardian is a gentleman named Dr. Lomas, and as she and her fiancé (John Agar) visit him together in her family mansion, he finds himself duty-bound to tell her in private about her father. Strange events — murderous events — begin to happen the same evening. Can she have inherited her doomed father’s fate of turning into a werewolf at the time of the full moon?
Well, not a lot of this makes much sense, and maybe the plot you might have put together yourself would have made a better film along these same lines than this one. But as the director, Edgar G. Ulmer manages to keep the action extra spooky, especially indoors, with all kinds of innovative camera angles and an excellent use of black and white lighting. Less effective is the mist effect used in outdoor scenes, which comes off only as if you’re looking through a smeared-up lens.
One other big plus is that Gloria Talbott never looked lovelier than she does in this movie, made the same year as The Cyclops, reviewed here. This one’s ten times better, if not more, and if you’re so inclined, which I assume you are, having read this far, the movie is well worth searching out for.
May 15th, 2016 at 4:01 pm
A good cast and Ulmer overcome a lot of drawbacks on this one. Nice to see Shields get top billing for a change.
I wonder if this is the film that drove him to making all that wine?*
*For anyone that doesn’t know Shields was the little old Italian wine maker in a popular series of commercials in my distant youth: “That little old wine maker … me.”
Of course he is also Barry Fitzgerald’s brother, and a prime member of the John Ford regulars and graduate of the famous Dublin theatrical troup that graced so many American films. He never achieved quite the same fame as his brother though.
May 15th, 2016 at 4:24 pm
With a title like that I thought she was going to have two personalities and not just turn into a werewolf. What was the script writer thinking of if anything?
May 15th, 2016 at 5:03 pm
There have always been attempts to tie Hyde to werewolf stories. Both reflect the Victorian fascination with atavism, and man’s reversion to a more beastial nature, then too, both the March and Tracy Hydes, the most familiar to film goers when this was done, resemble the Wolfman effects from that film (or the wolfman resembles them) more than the Barrymore Hyde that was done in camera.
Stevenson had in mind a small ape like creature closer to a hominid than werewolf, a literal evolutionary regression in physical and mental state, but films have added the sexual side that has always been associated with werewolves.
The actual novella is almost as much detective story as horror, we only see Hyde second hand and in his effect on Jekyll. Almost everything we associate with the story is imagry from the stage and film adaptations and not actually explicit in the book.
Still, the full moon transformation is unique to this version as far as I know.
For anyone interested this is available to watch on YouTube with French subtitles.
May 15th, 2016 at 5:16 pm
Here it is:
May 15th, 2016 at 7:05 pm
Sorry, I’ll pass on the chance to watch the film. David, I take your point about the place of the werewolf in all of this. I keep forgetting the bestial part. I read the original long before I ever saw any of the films.
May 16th, 2016 at 2:06 pm
Thanks very much for this good review.
Just watched the film again, for the first time in fifteen years, from the link you provided.
It certainly is an enjoyable film.
And it is definitely a work in which the visuals are better than the script.
May 16th, 2016 at 5:28 pm
David,
Actually, character actor Ludwig Stossel was the “little old wine maker” in the Italian Swiss Colony Wine commercials, though his memorable catchphrase was dubbed by Jim Backus.
May 16th, 2016 at 7:58 pm
According to the Internet, the source of all knowledge, Shields was well-known for another wine TV commercial, whose catch-phrase was “Put a rose in your glass.” The Internet is not sure if this commercial was for Gallo or Italian Swiss Colony Wine. (They aren’t the same, are they?)
May 17th, 2016 at 1:06 am
As a kid back in the mid-’50s, I remember Arthur Shields’s wine commercials, for Italian Swiss Colony.
My dad identified Shields for us as Barry Fitzgerald’s brother. He always found it amusing that Italian Swiss Colony used an Irish actor as its spokesman.
Later on, we all learned that the Shields brothers were Orangemen; Protestants from Ulster, pointedly anti-Catholic in sentiment – or at least they were until Barry Fitz (formerly William Joseph Shields) started making big Hollywood money playing priests.
May 17th, 2016 at 4:17 am
If memory serves the producer of this film wrote the script of the very similar SON OF DR JEKYLL.
May 17th, 2016 at 9:22 am
Your memory serves you well. Jack Pollexfen wrote SON (1951) and produced as well as wrote DAUGHTER (1957).
May 17th, 2016 at 6:12 pm
Shields was spokesman for Italian Swiss Colony from 1956 into the 1960s and Stossel from the 1960’s to the 1970’s. While the “That little old wine maker …” line is attributed to Stossel at IMDb it is quite possible both actors played the role. I can’t find video of the Shields commercials so it is possible he never used the tag line, but from the dates it appears Stossel inherited the part.
The Stossel commercial available on line is much more of a production than the rather crude and simple ads I recall Shields doing standing in front of a wine barrel with either a painted or still photo of a village and Alps behind him.
IMDb does not specify that Stossel replaced Shields, but the dates do suggest that.
May 17th, 2016 at 6:15 pm
Oh, and according to IMDb although an Orangeman, Shields was an Irish Nationalist of some note participating in the Easter 1916 uprising. Ironically, it also points out that he and John Loder, who he appeared with in many films, were actually on opposite sides in the uprising.
May 17th, 2016 at 6:51 pm
“Stevenson had in mind a small ape like creature closer to a hominid than werewolf, a literal evolutionary regression”
The closest I’ve seen to this is Jean-Louis Barrault in Le testament du Docteur Cordelier made for French TV in 1959. It’s a unique take on the Hyde aspect.
May 18th, 2016 at 1:28 am
My (increasingly vague) recollections of Arthur Shields’s Italian Swiss Colony commercials are that he just did a regular spiel, in a suit and tie, standing in a wine cellar set.
The Little Old Wine-Maker character (I think it’s a trademark) was created circa 1960.
Ludwig Stossel was cast in the role because he fit the ad agency’s visual; Jim Backus got the voice gig for much the same reason.
May 18th, 2016 at 8:37 pm
If anyone cares to see the current version of Dr Jekyll, I highly recommend the current series on Showtime “Penny Dreadful”. He was just introduced this season (only three shows in so far) as a college chum of Dr Frankenstein, who will be helping him in his office/lab where he is employed at the sanitarium. This is a really good show with not a bad actor in the cast. Dracula was finally introduced to the show in part 2 this year, and we have Frankenstein’s monster, Dorian Gray, the Werewolf, a few witches (great looking Eva Green among them), Voodoo, a Scotland Yard detective, etc. Very high production values make this show a real treat. Most of the action takes place in London. Jack the Ripper will show up soon, I’m sure. Right now it’s 1892.
May 18th, 2016 at 9:52 pm
Paul,
You are likely right about Jack the Ripper on PENNY DREADFUL, but actually Jack only operated for five months in 1888. By 1892 he was long gone from the scene.
Since they are doing the supernatural it won’t matter what real dates were anyway. Or they can do like HOUDINI AND DOYLE and create an alternate universe in which Harry Houdini was busting séances before his Mother died, Doyle was into spiritualism before his son died and he married his second wife who believed herself a spiritualist, and Houdini was not married to Bess.
A certain amount of leeway has to be given to any historical drama, but some of these shows do stretch it a bit.