The Daughter of Dr. Jekyll

The Daughter of Dr. Jekyll was a low-budget 1957 horror film directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and released by Allied Artists.^[1] Originally this film was released in theaters as a double bill with Dr. Cyclops. It features Gloria Talbott as Janet, the daughter of the infamous Dr. Henry Jekyll, and John Agar as her fiancée. Janet learns that she may have inherited her father's condition, and she begin to believe she may be guilty of murder when people are found horribly killed.^[2] However, all is not what it seems.^[3]

American film critic Andrew Sarris noted that the film had a "scenario so atrocious that it takes forty minutes to establish that the daughter of Dr. Jekyll is indeed the daughter of D. Jekyll".^[4] Yet film director Gary Don Rhodes suggests that the film "may be read as a critically significant text within the melodramatic crisis of female identity theater of the 1950s". He describes the film as an identity quest set in a dark fairy tale.^[5]

In the film's fight scene, the stuntman Ken Terrel stood in for Arthur Shields. The monster version of the girl was also played by a stunt double. To produce an unreal effect during this scene, the director set the action in a wooded region that had recently been burned by fire, then filmed it in ultraviolet light.^[6]

See also

• The Son of Dr. Jekyll

References

1. ^ Staff (2004). The Scarecrow Movie Guide. Seattle: Sasquatch Books. p. 291. ISBN 1570614156. 
2. ^ Binion, Cavett. "Daughter of Dr Jekyll (1957)". The New York Times. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/12468/Daughter-of-Dr-Jekyll/overview. Retrieved 2011-06-09. 
3. ^ Ulman, Erik. "Edgar G. Ulmer". Senses of Cinema. http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/great-directors/ulmer/. Retrieved 2011-06-09. 
4. ^ Sarris, Andrew (1996). The American cinema: directors and directions, 1929-1968. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0306807289. http://books.google.com/books?id=q0YFBbFBL8YC&pg=PA143. 
5. ^ Rhodes, Gary Don (2008). Edgar G. Ulmer: Detour on Poverty Row. Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series. Lexington Books. p. 242. ISBN 0739125672. http://books.google.com/books?id=WE6sGXFbZkIC&pg=PA242. 
6. ^ Weaver, Tom (2000). Return of the B science fiction and horror heroes: the mutant melding of two volumes of classic interviews. McFarland Classics Series. 21. McFarland. ISBN 0786407557. http://books.google.com/books?id=L8PK4jszVDoC&pg=PA281.