Hotwok2013 Hammer Films Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde unashamedly pinches elements from the real-life stories of the most famous serial-killer of all Jack The Ripper as well as the grave-robbers Burke & Hare, who later turned to murder & then selling the bodies to unscrupulous doctors for medical research. On top of all this it is also, obviously, based on Robert Louis Stevenson's book The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. Handsome Ralph Bates plays Dr. Jekyll, his alter ego Sister Hyde by the beautiful & seductive-looking Martine Beswick. Like many of Hammer's best movies it has superb production standards with real style & panache. Ralph Bates was an excellent actor & any excuse to ogle the ravishing Martine Beswick in various states of undress is fine by me. An entertaining mishmash of a movie!.

Witchfinder General 666 Hammer's take on the Robert Lewis Stevenson's unforgettable novel is an amazing one indeed! Personally, I think that the great Hammer Studios produced some of their greatest films in the early 70s, and "Dr. Jeckyll and Sister Hyde" (1972) is a great one indeed. Directed by prolific master Roy Ward Baker ("Quatermass and the Pit", "The Vampire Lovers", "Scars of Dracula"), this bizarre take on Stevenson's "Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde" accomplishes to be creepy and darkly funny at the same time.The regretfully underrated Ralph Bates stars as the eponymous brilliant scientist Dr. Jeckyll, who experiments in order to create a serum which is to make human life spans longer. In this film, he does not simply turn into a bad man when he tests the serum on himself, but into a female - more precisely into the stunning Martine Beswick! And the beautiful, but unscrupulous 'Sister Hyde' will do anything to stay..."Dr. Jeckyll and Sister Hyde" is doubtlessly one of the most bizarre Hammer films, and one of the few 'mad science' themed films Hammer made outside their brilliant "Frankenstein" cycle starring the great Peter Cushing (another one being "The Horror of Frankenstein" in which Bates played the eponymous Baron). Other than Dr. Jeckyll, the film also includes other popular Horror themes, namely the real-life events surrounding Burke and Hare and the Jack the Ripper case (though, in real life, Burke and Hare committed their crimes sixty years before Jack the Ripper, but then - who cares?). The film is terrifically set in late 19th century London, the dark and foggy alleys of which Hammer recreates with the usual Gothic greatness.Ralph Bates was a great actor and he makes a fantastic, sinister Dr. Jeckyll in the lead here. The ravishing cult-siren Martine Beswick (who was a Bond girl twice, in "From Russia With Love" and "Thunderball", and who also stared alongside Raquel Welch in Hammer's 'Cavemen vs. Dinosaurs' flick "One Million Years B.C. in 1964) is great as Sister Hyde; Miss Beswick is stunningly beautiful, but it is quite difficult to enjoy her beauty knowing that she is the female incarnation of Ralph Bates. Susan Broderick is very cute and likable as the neighbor girl who falls for Dr. Jeckyll, whereas her annoying brother (Lewis Fiander) is intrigued by Sister Hyde."Dr. Jeckyll and Sister Hyde" is simultaneously a suspenseful and creepy and often hilariously comical. In good Hammer tradition, the film profits from a great photography, Gothic set-pieces and a great score. The film maintains a creepy atmosphere from the beginning to the end, and is full of pitch-black morbid humor. Overall, this is a film that should be seen by any Horror fan. My fellow Hammer-fans in particular cannot allow themselves to miss it.

tankjonah The title strongly implies that this will be a campy, foolish adaptation of Stevenson's classic tale. This could not be further from the truth.In the 1880s Dr Jekyll (Ralph Bates), working on an elixir, discovers that the female hormones required for it to work turn him into his female alter ego, an attractive, dangerous woman (Martine Beswick) whom he calls his sister to keep his interested neighbours at bay. One (Susan Brodrick) is attracted to him, the other,(Lewis Fiander), Brodrick's brother, is attracted to Hyde.This surprisingly good take on the Jekyll and Hyde story also works in the Jack the Ripper murders with Jekyll and Hyde responsible for them as they kill to obtain the necessary female hormones for the experiments. The film is quietly amusing throughout. Highlights include: Bates caressing his well proportioned breasts when he first 'changes'; the truly bizarre triangle between the neighbours as Bates begins to realise that Susan will be a target of Hyde who wants to take over completely; Jekyll caressing the face of the brother unaware that he's changed from Hyde back to Jekyll. Well made and well acted with Bates and Beswick's facial similarities a major plus.

christopher-underwood Pretty good late Hammer. Not much to do with the original Stephenson story regarding the battle between good and evil within man but gives us an interesting twist. Indeed this mixes the aforementioned tale with that of Jack the Ripper and throws in Burke and Hare for good measure. And of course one of the more exciting added ingredients here is the lovely, Martine Berwick as Jekyll's alter ego or 'sister'. She's great throughout. His changes into her are effective, his gleeful peeks at herself fun and her spirited killing a treat. In fact the body count here must be very high because, after a languorous start, with voice-over we seem to scamper from one screaming bloody death to another.