Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971)

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General		Extras
Category	Horror	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1971
Running Time	93:04
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Roy Ward Baker
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Ralph Bates Martine Beswick Gerald Sim Lewis Fiander Susan Broderick Dorothy Alison Ivor Dean Philip Madoc Irene Bradshaw Neil Wilson Paul Whitsun-Jones Tony Calvin Dan Meaden
Case	?
RPI	$9.95	Music	Brian Clemens Philip Martell David Whitaker

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Hammer's third Jekyll film has a variation new to the cinema. Dr Henry Jekyll (Ralph Bates) is not searching for a way to isolate and remove man's evil other half, he is instead searching for an elixir of life, which he believes he can find in female hormones. Experimenting on a fly, he discovers that the treatment turns it from a male into a female.

    In order to speed up his research, he naturally decides to experiment on himself, which is handy as the film would be rather dull otherwise. The treatment has the expected side effect, in that he turns into Mrs Hyde (Martine Beswick). Now Jekyll has been using something from the lower half of female corpses, and so as to keep herself in control, Mrs Hyde resorts to killing women herself. Mainly prostitutes, in the Whitechapel area of London in 1889...

    There is a subplot involving a beautiful girl upstairs who has a crush on Jekyll, and her brother who feels the same about Mrs Hyde, who is passed off as Jekyll's sister. Throw in Burke and Hare, brought forward a few years and transferred in their grave robbing duties from Edinburgh, a twitching mortuary assistant played humorously by Philip Madoc, and Jack the Ripper, and you have this 1971 Hammer film, which despite being quite silly is very entertaining.

    The casting of the two title roles is near perfect. There is a strong physical similarity between Bates and Beswick which makes the film work. While the scriptwriter Brian Clemens (of The Avengers) does not delve too deeply into the possibilities of switching of genders, the film is fun as a variation on the standard Jekyll and Hyde story, moves at a fast pace and does not take itself too seriously.

Video

    The film is transferred in the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.

    The film is a little soft-looking but is sharp enough to be presentable on DVD. There is sufficient detail visible to allow the film to be watched without distraction. Shadow detail is average.

    Colour is quite good, with fairly accurate flesh tones, some bright colours and no evidence of colour bleeding. Blacks are generally fine, but I did notice that sometimes they had a light sheen that made them look blue or purple in colour.

    Film to video artefacts included some mild aliasing, but there was very little of this. Of more concern was the stability of the picture. Telecine wobble is noticeable during the opening credits, and throughout the film there is a vertical judder which results in frequent slight distortion of the image. This aspect of the transfer was quite disappointing.

    Film artefacts are limited to occasional white spots. There is a reasonable amount of grain present as well, though not to distracting levels.

    This is a single layer disc with no subtitles.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The sole audio channel is Dolby Digital 2.0 mono.

    The audio scrubs up well, with clear dialogue and a reasonably realistic body to the sound, though of course this is not of demonstration quality. It is quite acceptable for this material.

    For a Hammer shocker, this boasts a very good and effective orchestral score by David Whitaker, one of the best Hammer scores not written by James Bernard. Brian Clemens also contributes a song.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    This is a bare bones release with no extras whatsoever.

    The Region 1 release is from Anchor Bay and as usual in their Hammer series, there are some substantial extras.

• Audio commentary by film historian Marcus Hearns, director Roy Ward Baker, Brian Clemens and Martine Beswick
• Main menu audio
• Biographies
• Filmographies
• Trailer
• Radio Spots
• Poster and Photo Galleries

    On this basis, the Region 1 seems to be the clear winner, though if you only want to see the movie, the Region 4 is quite cheap.

    Not a bad film from this period at Hammer, this is worth seeing.

    The video quality is problematic, but it is watchable.

    The audio quality is acceptable.

    No expensive extras here.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall