The Son of Dr. Jekyll

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.

This movie had all the promise of being a good, old fashioned thriller, but unfortunately, the premise was wasted.

Louis Hayward plays Edward Jekyll, the son of the late Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde. Most of his time on the screen is spent trying to prove that his father was not the crazed killer, Dr. Hyde, but instead just the brilliant but misunderstood Dr. Jekyll.

This movie was billed as a horror movie, but there is no horror. There are just a few very brief glimpses of the mad Mr. Hyde. This movie had good actors and it could have been so much more had they spent more time with the scary element of the Jekyll and Hyde story. By the end I was just bored with the whole thing.

I thought Edward Ulmer's 1957 movie entitled "The Daughter of Dr. Jekyll", starring Gloria Talbot and John Agar, was a much better film. Even though it was cheesy in parts, it was not boring. This one will put you to sleep.

Rather than following in father's footsteps, this (obviously lookalike) progeny takes it upon himself to clear the old family name – but is misunderstood at every turn. Ponderous offshoot of a well-worn formula (pardon the pun), acted for more than its worth; nowhere near as wacky as Edgar G. Ulmer's DAUGHTER OF DR. JEKYLL (1957), but just as watchable under the circumstances. Indeed, the fanciful kinsmen of famous literary monsters were a staple from the 1930s onwards and, while some of the end results were not only commendable but remarkable, it generally meant that the rot had set in that particular source and that exploitation film-makers were milking a catchpenny moniker for all it was worth. To spice things up a bit here, Louis Hayward (as the titular character) is brought up by Jekyll's attorney Utterson (Lester Matthews) as his own son and is only told of his heritage – by Jekyll's duplicitous(!) colleague Dr. Lanyon (Alexander Knox) – when he is – here it comes again – booted out of college for his unorthodox experiments! Familiar character actors Paul Cavanaugh and Rhys Williams – as, respectively, the investigating Inspector and the proverbial butler – also put in an appearance but have fairly little of note to do. Curiously enough, although Hayward does get to don the "Mr. Hyde" make-up in the film's prologue, the actual monster in the film proper is somebody else – though contriving to expire in the exact same new way devised by the film-makers earlier on: falling to his death from a window ledge!!

MORD39 RATING: * out of ****

Get your pillow ready for this sure-fire cure for insomnia. Mr. Hyde is nowhere to be found in this dull and tiresome dud that features Louis Hayward as the son of the infamous doctor trying to find out what his old man was up to in that laboratory.

Interest wanes almost immediately as we wait for some kind of attempt at action to develop. It takes a very long time for this possibility to gain ground, but by that time it's too late for those who are still conscious.

As stated, Mr. Hyde is practically a no-show. I don't blame him for not sticking around.

Most of the IMDb reviews are right on. This feature is atmospheric, but except for the opening and a rather illogical closing scene, is pretty low on thrills. In between, grouchy Louis Hayward runs around and gets into little fistfights, but as Jekyll. Hyde is almost unseen in the story. Blooper highlight: as one reviewer mentioned, you do see the romantic leads-supposedly at the turn of the century-- bidding each other farewell in the front yard of an obviously 1950's suburban house a la "Leave It to Beaver."