Mari Blanchard

 

 (imdb)

SHE-DEVIL-1957-Workaholic genius bio-chemist Dr. Scott (Jack Kelly; CULT OF THE COBRA (1952)) is working and experimenting on the theory that with a little help humans may be able to cure themselves of disease. He creates a serum from fruit flies that cures some animals. Now he wants to try it on humans. His mentor Dr. Bock (Albert Dekker; DR. CYCLOPS (1940)) warns him. But later against his better judgment he lets Scott inject Kyra (Mari Blanchard), a woman dying of TB with his serum. It works and she gets better but seems to have a strange new personality. 

While in a dress shop, she attacks a man for his money. When she's trapped in a dressing room by the police she somehow transforms from black haired woman to a blonde beauty. She stays at Bock's house where his maid (Blossom Rock) is leery but Scott seems mesmerized by her. At a party thrown by Bock she dallies with a rich jerk named Kendall (John Archer) whose wife slaps Kyra. She turns back to her black-haired self and kills Mrs. K (Fay Baker). Later Kendall and Kyra marry and he complains how cold she is. He shoots her in the shoulder and on the way to the hospital she crashes the car and he dies. She escapes unscathed. Now a wealthy widow, she returns to Scott to convince him to get rid of Bock. He seems to agree but really doesn't and he and Bock plan to reverse the operation. It doesn't turn out the way they planned. 

Nice little but obscure black and white horror directed by Kurt Neumann who made the most out of low budget assignments (ROCKETSHIP X-M, KRONOS). He'd have his greatest success the following year in 1958 when he directed THE FLY. Unfortunately, he would pass away shortly after completing it. 

Star Mari Blanchard had been in ABBOTT AND COSTELLO GO TO MARS IN 1953 and other films like DESTRY (1954) with Audie Murphy and THE SON OF SINBAD (1955) with Dale Robertson. She made more movies after this (DON'T KNOCK THE TWIST (1962), TWICE-TOLD TALES (1963)) but worked mainly in TV. She died of cancer at 47 in 1970.

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Jekyll & Hyde

THE TWO FACES OF DR. JEKYLL-1960-In 1847 London Henry Jekyll (Paul Massie) is a disgraced doctor trying to discover "man as he would be". He's a loner who ignores his wife Kitty (Dawn Addams who was in Lang's THE 1000 EYES OF DR. MABUSE' the same year) and experiments on a monkey. Meanwhile Kitty is carrying on an affair with Jekyll's neer do well friend Paul (Christopher Lee). Somehow bearded, long haired, weird looking Jekyll becomes clean shaven, handsome Mr. Hyde who goes dancing and sees Paul and Kitty enjoying themselves. He dances with the unsuspecting  Kitty and nearly kills a dance hall bully(un-billed Oliver Reed). Later after making it with a snake charmer Hyde goes on a wild romp (including opium smoking) with Paul. Then extracting his revenge he sics the snake on Paul. When Kitty sees her illicit lover dead she fails to her own death. Hyde then strangles the snake charmer. Just when it seems like Hyde will literally get away with murder he reverts to Jekyll and dies.

Many times "new" interpretations of classic stories turn out to be boring and uninspired. Not so with Hammer's TWO FACES which thanks to the master of British horror Terence Fisher becomes an interesting and thought provoking take on Stevenson's Jekyll/Hyde story line. The acting and direction are excellent. The major flaw is the weird transformation of Hyde from Jekyll. Screenwriter Wolf Mankowitz later wrote the 1967 version of CASINO ROYALE. Director Fisher made BRIDES OF DRACULA and SWORD OF SHERWOOD FOREST the same year. Lee, who would later star in another Jekyll & Hyde film I, MONSTER  made CITY OF THE DEAD (HORROR HOTEL) the same year.

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Jekyll & Hyde on TV

CLIMAX!-DR.JEKYLL & MR. HYDE-1955-This was a live TV broadcast (sponsored by Chrysler) with the adaptation by Gore Vidal based on Robert Louis Stevenson's classic story.

Michael Rennie stars as Dr. Jekyll who wants to find man's soul and thinks he can produce a "angel or devil" from the same person.

The story begins with Jekyll's best friend Mr. Utterson (Cedric Hardwicke) killing the notorious Mr. Hyde in Jekyll's lab. Utterson then finds the doctor's journal (left casually on a table to be read after his death) and the rest of the story is told in flashback showing how Jeykll's ceaseless experimenting produces "the devil" Hyde and begins his dual personality, dedicated doctor by day, evil deviant by night. Rennie pulls off the dual role very well and time elapsed footage is used during most of the transformation scenes (not bad considering the drawbacks). Like most early TV productions it suffers from bad lighting and sparse production values (look for a hand that mysteriously appears near a curtain) but has some cool camera angles.

Mary Sinclair (a popular TV actress at the time) is "the girl" Hyde takes a fancy to. John Hoyt (with
an English accent) is Jekyll's servant Poole and Lowell Gilmore is his friend Lanyon  who says "Where's my tea? I came here for tea not a black mass".

 Director Allen Reisner did 19 other epsiodes of CLIMAX! and became very proflific in TV. Rennie starredin 8 other episodes and Hardwicke 5 others. The version I saw had the original commercials with
host William Lunigan hawking Chrysler cars.

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