Welcome back boils and ghouls, your friendly host with the most is back from the dead to deliver yucks and mucks aplenty this year, so without any further adieu...
1860 and the murderous Mr. Hyde (Louis Heyward) has finally been caught in the act of slaying his wife in Soho. He flees through the streets of London with a blood crazed crowd behind him. He manages to slip back into the mansion owned by Dr. Jekyll (also Heyward). The crowd sets torches to the building, prompting Hyde to try and jump to a nearby roof. He doesn't quite make it and reverts to Jekyll as he dies before the still maddened mob.
Jekyll's two friends quickly act. Rushing back to Hyde's rooms, Dr. Lanyon (Alexander Knox) and Utterson (Lester Matthews) find a baby among the carnage. Spiriting the babe away, it is decided that the child must never know of his parentage. Utterson decides to go one further; since he and his wife have been unable to conceive, he'll adopt the child and raise him as his own.
30 years later, and Edward Utterson (Heyward) is following in his father's footsteps. His real father, a fact which bothers Utterson greatly. Edward is soon expelled from the Royal Academy due to the nature of his experiments.
Edward isn't too bothered. If the Academy won't help him he'll find patronage from someone else. He also quickly proposes to his sweetheart Lynn Utterson (Jody Lawrence). They know they're not related but it still bothers me.
Lanyon and Utterson decide to tell the truth about Edward's parentage since it nearly time for Edward to come into his inheritance. Lanyon does so, entrusting Edward with the ruined Jekyll mansion and all the money that comes with it.
Edward quickly decides to embrace his family name, moving into the mansion and trying to restore it to its former glory. This doesn't sit well with anyone; the workers and contractors treat him with contempt while the neighbors all shun him. When the press starts after him, Edward decides to prove his father's theories and start conducting experiments of his own.
Edward manages to mix his father's old potion and on the first time even transforms. This newly birthed Hyde spends most of his time passed out on the floor though. Unseen by Edward, the formula was tampered with, but who did it?
When a series of assaults begin around the neighborhood, the specter of Hyde is blamed and since there's a Jekyll in the house...well, the authorities put two and two together. Can Edward clear his name?
Not a bad film but the idea of a Jekyll & Hyde story that doesn't use Jekyll and Hyde, well that's a spoiler but it does try for something different. The idea of not letting one's past determining your present is interesting but I suspect audiences of the time were expecting more madman menacing maidens type of thing.
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