Daughter of Dr. Jekyll (1957)

So Mr. Hyde was some sort of werewolf/vampire combo monster?, 28 October 2007

On her 21st birthday, Janet Smith (Gloria Talbott) discovers she has inherited an estate and a large sum of money. She's suddenly a wealthy woman about to be wed to the man of her dreams, George Hastings (John Agar). But she learns something else. She learns her father's secret. She discovers she is the daughter of the infamous Dr. Jekyll. And she begins having vivid nightmares of killing people in the most horrible of ways. She wakes to find herself covered in blood, her clothes torn, and her shoes muddy. Has she somehow inherited a dark, split-personality from her father that turns her into a snarling maniac?

For anyone who has seen both Daughter of Dr. Jekyll and Universal's She-Wolf of London, am I alone in comparing the two? I hate to give too much away about either movie, but there's no denying the similarities – two women about to be married, both under the impression that they turn into killers when the moon is full, slowly being driven mad, yet neither is responsible for the acts they are accused. It's too much of a coincidence to be just dumb luck. Oddly enough, though, I prefer Daughter of Dr. Jekyll to She-Wolf of London. It's not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it is slightly more enjoyable to me than the earlier movie. Chief among the reasons that I prefer this movie is the female lead. June Lockhart is one of my biggest complaints with She-Wolf of London. Gloria Talbott is far more believable in the similar role.

My biggest complaint with Daughter of Dr. Jekyll is the changes it makes to the Jekyll/Hyde storyline. Hyde is now referred to as a werewolf that had to be staked through the heart to kill him. Huh? So now he's some sort of werewolf/vampire creature? News to me! And I never quite understood how his daughter was supposed to have inherited his "curse". Wasn't Dr. Jekyll's "curse" self-induced? It doesn't seem that something that could be passed from one generation to the next.

5/10