THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE (1968)

THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE is a television adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous story that first aired on the ABC network in January 1968. The producer of the movie was Dan (DARK SHADOWS) Curtis, and Jack Palance starred as Jekyll & Hyde. I viewed this production on the Tubi streaming channel.

It would be very easy to say that Jack Palance could play Mr. Hyde without makeup, but I won’t go there. Suffice to say, Palance was a unique pick to play the lead role(s). The actor was not a leading man type like other famed Jekyll/Hydes such as John Barrymore, Fredric March and Spencer Tracy. Palance’s Jekyll is a middle-aged, nervy fellow, who seems unsure of himself. (Tellingly, Palance’s Jekyll is not engaged to an upper-class beauty, as in other filmed adaptations of the story.) This Jekyll wants to do the usual separation of man’s good and evil selves to benefit humanity, but there’s a sense in this version that he also wants to see what his other side is like.

Jack Palance had a reputation for chewing the scenery at times, and he certainly does that with his Hyde. This Hyde isn’t so much a hideous monster as he is a bar-brawling lout. Palance’s Hyde starts off as exuberant and full of energy–women are not repelled by him, they’re intrigued by his outlandish personality. But he soon turns into an obnoxious, violent brute who beats the dance-hall girl (Billie Whitelaw) he’s been keeping company with. The makeup for Palance as Hyde is rather bizarre–the actor’s chin, nose, and ears have been smoothed over, and in my opinion, it makes him look a bit like Liberace.

Jack Palance as Mr. Hyde

This version of DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE was filmed in Canada, and it was shot on videotape. The sets and production design are impressive, but the now-lackluster quality of the videotape doesn’t do it any favors. The production can’t help but have a soap-opera type feel to it (Dan Curtis was behind this, after all). The movie (which was directed by Charles Jarrott) is two hours long, and the story feels drawn out as it lumbers on to the inevitable conclusion. Much of the music for this movie apparently came from DARK SHADOWS, and it sounds like it.

There is a distinguished supporting cast here, with Denholm Elliott, Leo Genn, Torin Thatcher, Oscar Homolka, and Hammer veteran Duncan Lamont as a police inspector. The only main female role is played by Billie Whitelaw, who strangely gets a “and introducing” credit, despite the fact she had been doing major roles in feature films for years by this time. Whitelaw’s dance-hall dame is the equivalent of Ivy from the Fredric March/Spencer Tracy versions of Jekyll & Hyde, and the character also reminds one of Whitelaw’s performance in the Burke & Hare movie THE FLESH AND THE FIENDS. Whitelaw charms and seduces both Jekyll & Hyde, and she’s involved in this movie’s most disturbing moment. During a scene where Hyde beats her, a bobby is shown walking outside on the street. The bobby overhears the beating, looks up at the window where the sound is coming from, smirks to himself, and continues on his way.

THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE has several elements from various other adaptations of Stevenson’s tale, but there’s nothing in it that makes it stand out on its own. The shot-on-videotape look is hard to overcome, but Palance’s Jekyll also isn’t very sympathetic, and by the climax, he’s actually pathetic. Dan Curtis and Jack Palance would be reunited to work on another famous horror story a few years later, with a TV adaptation of DRACULA. That project is better than this attempt at Jekyll & Hyde.