Daughter of Dr. Jekyll - 1957

Gloria Talbott and John Agar do what they can with the minimalist production of this story of Dr. Jekyll's daughter (Talbott) showing up at the family's gloomy estate to inherit and discover, previously unknown to her, that dad was the famous Hyde/Jekyll of legend.

Arthur Shields plays a kindly family doctor who tries to help her through the turmoil of having the estate (and it's wealth) dumped into her lap plus the shock of learning about the unwholesome "curse" that, with a full moon, she will have a propensity to become a monster like Jekyll did with becoming Mr. Hyde. John Agar is the girl's boyfriend and is (mostly) determined to dispel the "curse" as a faery tale, or, as the story proceeds, a psychological manipulation. Meanwhile, the daughter is becoming convinced something is horrifying is happening to her at night that she can't remember or control afterward.

The problem for this cast and the director, Edgar Ulmer, is that the lack of money is too evident, and the script is too bare of any subtleties. Like a period TV drama you've already seen in the past, you can tell where the plot twists of Daughter of Dr. Jekyll are going long before they arrive. The only real pleasure of the film is Ulmer's sometimes interesting visual work and Talbott and Agar trying to go to the limit of their abilities to make their characters stick out from the mediocrity surrounding them. Arthur Shields is a high point of the production, but he nor the rest of the cast can perform any alchemy here.

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