Dr. Heckyl & Mr. Hype is a 1980 American comedy horror film written (with “apologies to Robert Louis Stevenson”) and directed by Charles B. Griffith (Up from the Depths) for Cannon. It stars Oliver Reed (Paranoiac; The Damned; The Brood), Sunny Johnson, Mel Welles (director of Lady Frankenstein), Jackie Coogan (Mesa of Lost Women), Dick Miller, Lucretia Love. Griffith wrote a number of early scripts for Roger Corman such as Little Shop of Horrors and Creature from the Haunted Sea.
The film is a reversal of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story, about a malformed doctor who drinks a potion and becomes a handsome – and violent – ladies man. Steve Neill provided the monster makeup for Dr. Heckyl.
Griffith says he had only three weeks to write and prepare the film, four weeks to shoot and two weeks to edit. He was paid $25,000 to write and $25,000 to direct. Griffith originally wanted Dick Van Dyke to play the lead but he was touring in a play so Golan hired Oliver Reed. Griffith said, “I had to redo the entire picture in my head when he was cast, because it was a zany slapstick comedy and I got Oliver Reed – with that face and that voice! So I made it more lyrical.”
Sunny Johnson was cast the day before shooting started; she died a few years later of a brain haemorrhage. The script was 200 pages, and Griffith admits he never had time to cut it down properly. He also said he “fought with the producers over blood and gore versus comedy, and lost as usual.”
According to Griffith: “Heckyl and Hype could have been a very good picture. Dr. Heckyl is a monster podiatrist. He is very humble and meek and helpful and nice to everybody. His attitude is that good-looking guys can get away with murder. Oliver was great as Heckyl. Wonderful. He played the part with a kind of New York accent and everything, but when he was Hype, he didn’t know how to do it… Reed played Hype as Oliver Reed, slow and ponderous. He didn’t understand my interpretation, so the picture jars, and half the people get up and walk out.”
Reviews:
“This film is really sloppily made. There is next to no thought put into the framing of the shots and much of the film takes place at night, so we struggle to even see any of the action at all. The sound is also really poorly done, sounding similar to the effect you would get with the build-in mic on your Grandpa’s old home movie camera. Reed’s mumblings as Heckyl are almost inaudible at times. At least Dick Miller and Jackie Coogan make brief appearances, but that’s not enough to salvage things.” Forgotten Films
