The Daughter of Dr. Jekyll
Encyclopedia
The Daughter of Dr. Jekyll was a low-budget 1957 horror film
directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and released by Allied Artists. 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. However, all is not what it seems.
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". 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.
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.
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and released by Allied Artists. Originally this film was released in theaters as a double bill with Dr. Cyclops
Dr. Cyclops
Dr. Cyclops is a science fiction horror film directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack, starring Thomas Coley, Victor Kilian, Janice Logan, Charles Halton, Frank Yaconelli, and Albert Dekker, and released by Paramount Pictures.- Plot summary :...
. It features Gloria Talbott
Gloria Talbott
Gloria Talbott was an American film and television actress.-Early life and career:She grew up in Glendale, California...
as Janet, the daughter of the infamous Dr. Henry Jekyll, and John Agar
John Agar
John George Agar was an American actor. He starred alongside John Wayne in the films Sands of Iwo Jima, Fort Apache and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, but was later relegated to B movies, such as Tarantula, The Mole People, The Brain from Planet Arous, Flesh and the Spur, and Hand of Death...
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. However, all is not what it seems.
American film critic Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris is an American film critic and a leading proponent of the auteur theory of criticism.-Career:Sarris is generally credited with popularizing the auteur theory in the U.S...
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". 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.
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.