The Son of Dr. Jekyll

Look at the house in the background of the scene where Edward is kissing his fiancée goodbye for three months. The house looks like the Leave it to Beaver house. If you look closely you can see the gutters on the house and the electric wires going onto it.

I realise that my one-line summary is faint praise indeed but it does reflect the quality of this film. Overall it's at best, a slightly below average story but, it does indeed get better and picks up the pace in the last one/third of the film. The black and white photography of this period piece is done very well with the street sets looking very authentic. Louis Hayward does his usual competent job and is assisted especially well by Alexander Knox and Rhys Williams. Jody Lawrence is pretty to look at but her character adds very little to the story. The identity of the real killer is divulged rather early so this film is not a whodunnit. If you start watching this movie and find yourself starting to get bored, try to stay with it for a while longer. You will eventually be rewarded with about 30 minutes of good action.

What a lovely movie to look at. Wonderful costumes and sets make this movie a real treat to the eye. Some of the best I've seen in a period horror film. The acting is also quite good. It's just too bad that this is all The Son of Dr. Jekyll has to offer.

It's easy to see why this film was titled The Son of Dr. Jekyll and not The Son of Mr. Hyde. Other than the opening scene where Hyde (I'm not entirely sure it was Hyde) has about five minutes of screen time, we see him for less than 10 seconds in the rest of the film. Very disappointing. Without Hyde, Dr. Jekyll has a tough time carrying a movie by himself.

The movie is really more of a crime mystery than a horror regardless of how it is listed on IMDb. The "son" spends the majority of the movie tying to figure out who is framing him as mad killer. While it is a decent enough idea for a movie, the killer's true identity is given away so early that there are few dramatic or tense moments later on.

Years after the horrors of the original tale, Jekyll / Hyde's child has reached adulthood.

THE SON OF DR. JEKYLL has the titular offspring, Edward Jekyll (Louis Hayward) picking up where dear old dad left off. Mad science commences when Edward sets out to prove the merit of his father's experiments. Using his father's laboratory, he recreates the fateful formula.

What could possibly go wrong?

TSODJ is a decent follow-up to the classic DR. JEKYLL movies, with the added twist of a nefarious character who causes big trouble for Edward.

A solid entry in the SON OF... sub genre...

Although Robert Louis Stevenson fails to mention a son in his work it turns out that he does and is played by Louis Hayward. He's been raised in secret and until recently was not aware of the chaos dear old dad caused with his experiments in Victorian London.

Anyway Hayward moves back into the old family dwelling and his neighbors are not pleased. Especially when some brutal events start occuring. Can it be the monster from the Jekyll DNA Id Mr. Hyde has returned courtesy of experiments Hayward is doing. Hayward does have an aptitude for science like dad, but what else?

I think Columbia Pictures which produced The Son Of Dr. Jekyll was fortunate to secure the services of Louis Hayward. Hayward could play swashbuckling heroes and some really dastardly scoundrels with equal ability. His ambiguous screen persona aids greatly here as you don't know how this will come out.

The rest of the cast does well and it includes Jody Lawrance as the girl Hayward is courting, Lester Matthews as her titled dad who really wants no Jekylls on his family tree, Paul Cavanaugh as the Scotland Yard inspector, Rhys Williams as Hayward's butler and Alexander Knox as a colleague of the original Dr. Jekyll.

This was a well done sequel to the original story.