Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1972)

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Dr. Jekyll (Ralph Bates) is a scientist researching the cure of many diseases. He is a very reserved and shy man, and spends most of his time working on his laboratory. One day, his friend Professor Robertson (Gerald Sim) visits him and advises that he would probably die before the conclusion of his studies. Dr. Jekyll decides to research an elixir of life, based on feminine hormones, to extend his life and consequently end his work. He uses female corpses to get the hormones. The effect of the elixir releases his '"feminine repressed side" and he becomes an aggressive and beautiful woman, Ms. Hyde (Martine Beswick). When the bodies finish in the city morgue, Dr. Jekyll starts killing women to proceed with his research."Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde" is another charming movie by Hammer and a great entertainment. The theatrical style uses few locations and the gore and killing are not graphic. Fans of Hammer Film Productions will certainly enjoy this different version of the classic story Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "O Médico & Irmã Monstro" ("The Doctor and Sister Monster")

Every now and then someone has a real brainwave - in this case, it was a simple idea: "Mister" sounds like "Sister", so why don't we retool Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde so that Jekyll's potion changes him from male to female? Voila - sheer genius.Then add to this a stroke of casting brilliance - the always reliable Ralph Bates plays a dignified, restrained and by-the-book Dr Jekyll, while Martine Beswick plays an unrestrained, sensuous (and murderous) Ms Hyde. And, wonder of wonders, Bates and Beswick really look a lot like each other to start off with, so it is extremely easy for an audience to accept that they are the same person after Jekyll's potion has done its stuff. All that is missing is a morphing effect to change one into the other and, given that this movie is from 1971, 20-odd years before computer graphics first raised their head in any serious fashion, I guess we can forgive them the absence of morphing.This brilliantly conceived, wonderfully cast, idea is played, for all it's worth, as a mixture of grand guignol and black comedy bordering on farce. Though it is dated in some respects, it is still very entertaining, and is definitely one of hammer's better offerings.Try to catch it if you can.

Hyde as a woman! Could be a bad comedy, but thankfully it is not. Made as a Gothic thriller with some humor in it, Brian Clemens'script is nothing short of a masterpiece. Sister Hyde/Jill the ripper in her strikingly scarlet and feminine dresses is sexy and blood-thirsty without filthy ho-look and her stalking scenes in the streets of 1888 London, accompanied by David Whitaker's wonderful score, make this lady one of the great villains of cinema. No, not just horror movies but cinema in general. Photography and sets are good - hey, this is a Hammer film! - and Susan Brodrick's rose-coloured jacket-dress ... lovely! Burke and Hare, who sold the bodies of their victims to the doctors in 1820s Edinburgh, are now magically transported to another time and place, with a bit of 1950s British movie Flesh and the fiends (the duo's fate in the hands of the mob) thrown in for the good measure. There's even mention of the legendary Victorian killer barber Sweeney Todd and the fate of HIS victims in Burke's comment "If I were you, I would not eat meat pies in this neighborhood". Alternative universe Hammer, so don't whine about lack of realism.

The stiff upper lip and jaw of Ralph Bates finally come into their own in this nice variation of Jekyll and Hyde, which also mixes in good quantities of Jack the Ripper myth and the famous 17th century grave robbers Burke and Hare. Considerably less stiff is Martine Beswick as the doctor's female alter ego. She is absolutely too loose in her ways, but I am certainly not complaining! Both are just the right persons for their clashing roles and superbly so. The actual physical change between the two supreme parts in one person is shown in subtle manners and without great special effects, which not only was cheaper to do, but also leaves a lot for a viewer to imagine and so makes it in a way easier to accept. A wise decision from the makers.The plot idea of unifying the two main story lines of such classic origins is nothing short of brilliant. The invention of elixir of human life using female hormones and how to get it by "uncanny goings in late hours" really does the trick. So does the fascinating and at the same time foul results of the experiment, the mixing of selves and struggle for dominance. Of course much more could have been built in and deepened in the script making the story more intriguing and disturbing. Some needed romantic and freshening humor aspect comes from the continuously snooping neighbors with their funnily pretentious "it doesn't concern us" attitude.In all, this is once again a fun and stylish horror movie from Hammer studios. The bolder style of company's early seventies film is very much present with some slight gore and nudity added in the proceedings. So, now everyone hurry up and see it.