I didn't expect to find an example of the 1950's monster movie revival that could possibly be worse than The She Creature (1956 --see my review), but Daughter Of Dr. Jekyll is so bad, it makes The She Creature look like an Academy Award nominee. Daughter of Dr. Jekyll is simply awful in every department -- terrible script with insipid dialog, bad acting, draggy pacing, uninspired cinematography, papier mache sets. Not to mention shabby special effects. This movie was so cheap, they couldn't even afford a decent artificial fog machine for the what-should-have-been atmospheric outdoors on the moors scenes. At times it looked like they had simply fogged the negative to get a murky effect. Other times it seemed as if someone was sitting under the camera smoking a cigarette and letting the smoke curl upward. I would not kid about something like this!
I haven't mentioned incompetent direction yet, but we're getting there. Edgar G. Ulmer has a cult following among some of the auteur worshipers which regards him as an unappreciated genius who could rise above the low budgets of his projects and put his personal stamp on them. This Ulmer mystic is primarily based on a half-dozen pretty good ones out of a gazillion crummy ones he directed. The Black Cat (1934) and Bluebeard (1944) are widely and deservedly recognized as minor horror classics, while Detour (1945) is worshiped all out of proportion to its modest merits by the nihilistic wing of the noir groupies. Personally, I thought The Strange Woman (1946), one of Ulmer's biggest budget productions, better than most rate it. But with its cast, which included Hedy Lamarr and George Sanders, it occurred to me that it would likely have been better if someone else had directed it.
To get to the business at hand, Ulmer's bumbling direction in Daughter Of Dr. Jekyll must shoulder the blame for a competent cast, including John Agar and Arthur Shields, acting so poorly. It seems as if Ulmer told them they had to say their lines as quickly as possible, because they were in danger of running out of film. Maybe there was a doubtful, bought on the cheap, microphone, as well. Everyone shouts his our her lines with a frantic haste. Shields, normally almost as good an actor as his look-alike Accademy Award winning brother Barry Fitzgearald, in this turkey screeches, grimaces, and even waves his arms like one of the rejected try-outs in a high school play. Agar is even worse. He just seems angry, no matter what emotion he is supposed to be portraying. No doubt he was sore about being reduced to such penny ante productions. Well, he was an "A" actor at one time, and he should have laid off the whiskey if he wanted to stay one. Buxom female lead Gloria Talbot has her moments as the tormented title character, but it is only tall, craggy John Dierkes who rises above Ulmer's wacko direction to turn in a creditable performance as the sullen manor servant bent on righting the Jekyll wrongs.
This picture is a serious stinker. Only for Ulmer cultists, die-hard fans of 'fifties horror, and desperate insomniacs. Others should avoid Daughter of Dr. Jekyll as if it were a skunk crossing the road.
I haven't mentioned incompetent direction yet, but we're getting there. Edgar G. Ulmer has a cult following among some of the auteur worshipers which regards him as an unappreciated genius who could rise above the low budgets of his projects and put his personal stamp on them. This Ulmer mystic is primarily based on a half-dozen pretty good ones out of a gazillion crummy ones he directed. The Black Cat (1934) and Bluebeard (1944) are widely and deservedly recognized as minor horror classics, while Detour (1945) is worshiped all out of proportion to its modest merits by the nihilistic wing of the noir groupies. Personally, I thought The Strange Woman (1946), one of Ulmer's biggest budget productions, better than most rate it. But with its cast, which included Hedy Lamarr and George Sanders, it occurred to me that it would likely have been better if someone else had directed it.
To get to the business at hand, Ulmer's bumbling direction in Daughter Of Dr. Jekyll must shoulder the blame for a competent cast, including John Agar and Arthur Shields, acting so poorly. It seems as if Ulmer told them they had to say their lines as quickly as possible, because they were in danger of running out of film. Maybe there was a doubtful, bought on the cheap, microphone, as well. Everyone shouts his our her lines with a frantic haste. Shields, normally almost as good an actor as his look-alike Accademy Award winning brother Barry Fitzgearald, in this turkey screeches, grimaces, and even waves his arms like one of the rejected try-outs in a high school play. Agar is even worse. He just seems angry, no matter what emotion he is supposed to be portraying. No doubt he was sore about being reduced to such penny ante productions. Well, he was an "A" actor at one time, and he should have laid off the whiskey if he wanted to stay one. Buxom female lead Gloria Talbot has her moments as the tormented title character, but it is only tall, craggy John Dierkes who rises above Ulmer's wacko direction to turn in a creditable performance as the sullen manor servant bent on righting the Jekyll wrongs.
This picture is a serious stinker. Only for Ulmer cultists, die-hard fans of 'fifties horror, and desperate insomniacs. Others should avoid Daughter of Dr. Jekyll as if it were a skunk crossing the road.