dr. jekyll & sister hyde (roy ward baker, 1971)

This is the seventh film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2023-24", "A 33 week long challenge where the goal each week is to watch a previously unseen feature length film from a specified category." This is the 9th annual challenge, and my fifth time participating (previous years can be found at "2019-20", "2020-21", "2021-22", and "2022-23"). Week 7 is called "Hammer Horror Week":

London-based Hammer Film Productions is most famously known for the horror movies they produced in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. They often made low-budget movies featuring classic horror monsters like Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, and the Mummy, employed a usual repertoire of actors in many of their films (including David Prowse who would later don the Darth Vader costume), crafted Gothic sets, and shot their movies in actual mansions rather than on studio sets. They capitalized on including more explicit violence and sexual content than was usual at the time, but when American films like Rosemary’s Baby and Bonnie and Clyde came out and offered the same thrills with much higher production values, Hammer Pictures couldn’t keep up and eventually ceased producing movies altogether.

This week dive into some classic Hammer Horror from this list. If you can’t unearth one of the classic gems of Hammer Horror you may look to the films made after Hammer Film Productions was resurrected in 2007 after decades of silence.

Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde is a fairly typical late Hammer picture. They make the most of their limited sets, none of the actors are bad, and there's some cleavage. The angle on the classic story this time is that when Jekyll drinks his potion, he doesn't turn into Mr. Hyde, he turns into Mrs. Hyde. The transgender undertones are more obvious nowadays, I imagine. It's the first time I've seen Ralph Bates, who played Jekyll ... he's functional. Former Bond Girl Martine Beswick is better as Mrs. Hyde. The movie works Jack the Ripper and Burke and Hare into the story without too much trouble. Roy Ward Baker has made better films ... he directed the excellent 1958 Titanic movie A Night to Remember, and my favorite Hammer film, Quatermass and the Pit. (He also directed the disappointing Vampire Lovers.)