Two of my favorite B movie actors, John Agar (who was in The Brain from Planet Arous the same year this came out) and Gloria (I Married a Monster from Outer Space) Talbott star in this low budget mishmash from Edgar G. (Detour) Ulmer. Talbott plays a woman who goes to her guardian’s home to tell him she’s going to marry Agar on her 21st birthday. He then tells her she’s actually an heiress and that on her birthday, the mansion and the surrounding grounds will revert back to her. He also reveals to her she’s the daughter of Dr. Jekyll and that she just may have inherited the family curse.
You have to give Daughter of Dr. Jekyll credit: It has a loony hook. It’s the movie that asks the question: “What if Mr. Hyde was, in fact, a werewolf?” I mean, I guess I can see that as he sometimes looks like a werewolf in some adaptations. (Most notably the Frederic March version). This is the first version I know of that explicitly states it.
That’s nothing though. Get a load of this. Not only does Dr. Jekyll turn into a werewolf, but he can only be killed by a stake in the heart! You have to wonder if screenwriter Jack (The Atomic Brain) Pollexfen ever saw a horror movie before.
This all could’ve been goofy fun, but it just takes far too long to get the show on the road. The first half is filled with a lot of stalling tactics that only succeed in testing the audience’s patience. While I am a fan of both Agar and Talbott, I have to admit, this is far from their best work. It looks really cheap too. (Check out the obvious model that passes as the mansion’s exterior.)
Then again, what do you expect from a movie that thinks a stake through the heart kills a werewolf?
Despite all that, Ulmer manages to wring some atmosphere out of the proceedings (especially during the dream scenes where Talbott transforms into a killer and stalks her victims). You kind of have to respect the way he keeps on tossing in more and more cliches (hypnosis, secret passageways, suspicious caretakers, angry villagers brandishing torches, etc.), even if he never really follows through on any of them. Without a sturdy foundation, the cliches just feel like boxes being checked off without any real cohesion.
The film finally comes to life in the last ten minutes. Sure, the big twist is predictable, but I’ll watch any movie that features a lap dissolve werewolf transformation, no matter how bad. My favorite bit though was the scene where Mr. Hyde plays Peeping Tom and pervs on a woman while she is getting ready for bed. Too bad he doesn’t get to play Hyde the Salami with her.
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