Director – Joe Stephenson, Screenplay – Dan Kelly-Mulhern, Based on the Novella The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson, Producers – Liam Coutts, Guy De Beaujeu & Joe Stephenson, Photography – Bebe Dierken, Music – Blair Mowat, Visual Effects – Lexhag Visual Effects (Supervisors – Alexis Haggar & Jonathan Hancock), Special Effects Designer – Haelwynn Adams, Makeup Design – Frances Hounsom, Production Design – Natalie O’Connor. Production Company – Hammer: A John Gore Company/B Good Picture Company Limited/Fluidity Films/Fulwell 73/Soundnode/Anderson Entertainment.
Cast
Eddie Izzard (Dr Nina Jekyll), Scott Chambers (Rob Stevenson), Lindsay Duncan (Sandra Poole), Robyn Cara (Maeve), Morgan Watkins (Ewan Stevenson), Simon Callow (Journalist), Jonathan Hyde (Dr Henry Jekyll)
Plot
Rob Stevenson is just released from jail. His brother Ewan gets him a job as an assistant to Nina Jekyll, the former head of a pharmaceutical corporation, now living at a countryside estate after being forced to step down. When he attends the interview, Rob is told by the autocratic housekeeper Sandra Poole that he is outside the range of the usual applicants. Rob explains he needs the job in the hope of being able to be granted access to his child that was born after he was jailed. He impresses Nina who agrees to take him on. As he settles in and becomes friends with Nina, Rob discovers strange things around the house, including abrupt changes in Nina’s mood and then Mrs Poole going missing. As Nina explains, she is the granddaughter of Dr Henry Jekyll, who discovered a formula that could unleash the dark side of human nature.
Hammer Films is a landmark name in the horror genre. Although created in the 1930s, their heyday was between the late 1950s and late 1970s. Their popularity was sparked when they produced The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Dracula/The Horror of Dracula (1958), vivid reworkings of the classic stories that gave horror a massive injection in the arm, created the Anglo-Horror Films film and made stars out of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Hammer produced a great many Dracula and Frankenstein sequels, revisions of other horror classics and original works, before their brand started to fade in the 1970s. The classic Hammer legacy ended with their final film, a non-genre remake of The Lady Vanishes (1979), followed by two ventures into tv anthology with Hammer House of Horror (1980) and Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense (1984).
That was until the company name was purchased by Dutch producer John De Mol, the creator of tv’s Big Brother (2000- ). Under the revived banner, Hammer produced a string of occasionally quite good films with Let Me In (2010), The Resident (2011), Wake Wood (2011), The Woman in Black (2012), The Quiet Ones (2014) and The Lodge (2019), as well as the web-released serial Beyond the Rave (2008). That said, these were a far cry from classic Hammer and were essentially a group of films made by different people that were merely released with the Hammer name without any connection to or personnel from Hammer’s heyday.
In 2023, the Hammer name and back catalogue was purchased by the US-based The John Gore Organization, best known as a live theatre distributor. Doctor Jekyll is the first film released under that banner. It tries to establish its bona fides and opens with a montage of scenes from classic Hammer films and then the legend ‘Hammer: A John Gore Company’. Interestingly, the film is co-produced by Anderson Entertainment, headed by Jamie Anderson, the son of Gerry Anderson, creator of tv’s Thunderbirds (1964-6) and Space: 1999 (1975-7), among other shows.
Eddie Izzard as Nina Jekyll
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is one of the iconic horror characters, originally appearing in Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886). Classic Hammer ventured to adapt the story three times with the little-seen The Ugly Duckling (1959), the full-blooded The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960) starring Paul Massie and Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971) where Ralph Bates transforms into Martine Beswick. ( full discussion of Jekyll and Hyde films is here under the Theme Essay Jekyll and Hyde Films).
The pre-publicity made a big thing of Eddie Izzard playing Dr Jekyll with images released showing Izzard as a woman. In real life, Izzard describes themselves as variously transvestite, genderfluid or transgender, but (as far as I am aware) this is the first time that we have seen Izzard as a woman in a central performance. This left you with the expectation we would be in for some kind of reimagining of Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde where we saw Jekyll changing gender between man and woman and that the film would be a version of the Doctor Jekyll story that had been reworked for the 2020s era of high trans visibility and acceptance.
The surprise in watching Doctor Jekyll is that this doesn’t turn out to be the case at all. It is mentioned in the newspaper headlines over the credits that Dr Jekyll is trans, but that is the only relevance that any such has in the plot throughout the film. The rest of the show is just a standard Jekyll and Hyde film, although given that Eddie Izzard is a descendent of the original Dr Jekyll, that makes the film less of an adaptation of Stevenson than akin to one of the Son of Dr Jekyll (1951) or Daughter of Dr. Jekyll (1957) unofficial sequels.
(l to r) Nina Jekyll (Eddie Izzard) and Rob Stevenson (Scott Chambers)
It is also a Jekyll and Hyde that has been modernised. Doctor Jekyll is the (former) CEO of a pharmaceutical corporation. Scott Chambers has to sign an NDA agreement before his job interview, while the house is wired with cctv cameras and an alarm system. In one of the cuter interpolations, Dr Jekyll no longer takes a serum but inhales from a cigarette (where the tip glows green!). And in a very modern touch it is hinted that Jekyll had to step down because of some unspecified disgrace and was Cancelled.
What would also be said is that this is a very non-traditional telling of the Jekyll/Hyde story. Almost every single other film version to a fault starts with Dr Jekyll taking the potion and transforming, finding that he cannot control Hyde etc. All of these come at contrast to Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella where all of this is built up to a mystery reveal that happens at the end. Here the story is told through the eyes of a character who is hired as Jekyll’s assistant (named Robert Stevenson) and there is a similar sense of mystery about what is going on with Dr Jekyll as Stevenson’s story has it. Here the reveal comes about two-thirds of the way through, sooner than the book has it.
Unlike most other versions, there is no physical transformation here. The only gradations are in some of Eddie Izzard’s performance. It is not clear that it is Hyde we are seeing in the earlier scenes until the explanation that comes in mid-film. Izzard certainly gives an entertainingly gregarious performance. On the other hand, this leads to one of the least satisfying aspects of the film – when Izzard emerges fully as Hyde in the latter sections of the film, the great disappointment is that Hyde is turned into a campy supervillain, while everything that has happened throughout is revealed as being part of a machiavellian scheme to lure Scott Chambers there.
Other versions of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are:– Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1908); Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1910) with Alvin Neuss; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1912) with James Cruze; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1913) with King Baggott; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920) with John Barrymore; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1920) with Sheldon Lewis; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1920) with Sheldon Lewis; Der Januskopf (1920), a lost German version with Conrad Veidt; the classic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) with Fredric March; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1941) with Spencer Tracy; Jean Renoir’s The Testament of Dr Cordelier (1959) with Jean-Louis Barrault; The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960), the Hammer version with Christopher Lee; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (tv movie, 1968) with Jack Palance; I, Monster (1971) also with Christopher Lee; The Man with Two Heads (1972) with Denis DeMarne; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (tv movie, 1973), a musical version with Kirk Douglas; Walerian Borowczyk’s Dr Jekyll and His Women (1981) with Udo Kier; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (tv movie, 1981) with David Hemmings; a 1985 Russian adaptation starring Innokenti Smoktonovsky; Edge of Sanity (1989) with Anthony Perkins; The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde an episode of the tv series Nightmare Classics (1989) with Anthony Andrews; Jekyll and Hyde (tv movie, 1990) with Michael Caine; My Name is Shadow (1996), a Spanish version starring Eric Gendron; a bizarre tv pilot Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1999), which combined the story with Hong Kong martial arts and featured Adam Baldwin playing a Jekyll as a superhero in the Orient; Jekyll & Hyde: The Musical (2001) with David Hasselhoff; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (2002) directed by and starring Mark Redfield; the excellent British tv reinterpretation Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (2002) with John Hannah; The Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Rock’n’Roll Musical (2003) with Alan Bernhoft; the modernised Jekyll + Hyde (2006) with Bryan Fisher; The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (2006) with Tony Todd; the modernised BBC tv series Jekyll (2007) with James Nesbitt; Jekyll (2007) starring Matt Keeslar where Hyde becomes a virtual creation; and the modernised Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde (2008) starring Dougray Scott.
Other variations include the would-be sequels Son of Dr Jekyll (1951), Daughter of Dr. Jekyll (1957) and Dr Jekyll and the Wolfman (1972); the comedy variations Abbott and Costello Meet Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1953), The Ugly Duckling (1959), the Italian My Friend, Dr Jekyll (1960) and The Nutty Professor (1963); versions where Dr Jekyll turns into a woman with Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971), the Italian comedy Dr Jekyll and the Gentle Lady (1971) and Dr Jekyll and Ms Hyde (1995); the gender-reversed Madame Hyde (2017); a Looney Tunes cartoon Dr Jekyll’s Hide (1954) where Sylvester the Cat transforms into a dog after taking the formula; the erotic/adult versions The Naughty Dr. Jekyll (1973), The Erotic Dr Jekyll (1976), Jekyll and Hyde (2000), Dr. Jekyll & Mistress Hyde (2003) and Jacqueline Hyde (2005); Dr Black and Mr Hyde (1976), a Blaxploitation version where Jekyll is a Black man who turns into a white-skinned monster; the amusing send-up Jekyll and Hyde … Together Again (1982); a wacky children’s tv series Julia Jekyll and Harriet Hyde (1995); Killer Bash (1996) set in a frat house with an avenging female Jekyll; and the excellent deconstruction Mary Reilly (1996), which tells the story from the point-of-view of Jekyll’s maid. Dr Jekyll appears as a character in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) played by Jason Flemyng, in the tv series Penny Dreadful (2014-6) played by Shazad Latif and in The Mummy (2017) played by Russell Crowe, which all feature team-ups between Famous Monsters, while the animated The Pagemaster (1994) features a Dr Jekyll voiced by Leonard Nimoy.
