DOCTOR JEKYLL LIKES THEM HOT (1979)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *irony*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

I'd seen the title of this movie in many concordances over the years. My opportunity to see the strangely titled flick came thanks to a YouTube download of a dubbed English version-- but one with Italian-subbed scenes cut from the English version re-inserted, so I assume the source was a DVD edition. Both the English title and some of the ads, like the above poster, were clearly designed to sell HOT as a screwball comedy, maybe referencing the sort of sexploitation efforts for which Edwige Fenech was best known. The scene above, showing a scantily clad Fenech about to club a guy who looks a husband sneaking in after hours, naturally has zero to do with the story, and why anyone would have thought that image had some relevance to any "Doctor Jekyll" movie shall remain a mystery for the ages.

Though Fenech is the star of many of her sex-comedies, here she plays the supporting role of Barbara, ruthless secretary to an equally ruthless British businessman, known as Doctor (no first name) Jekyll (Paolo Villaggio). He's not any sort of doctor so far as I can tell, but people like his family butler Pretorius (hah!) are aware that he's the grandson of the original Jekyll from Victorian times, so I guess "doctor" might be-- a nickname? Anyway, Jekyll is a major player at a corrupt drug manufacturer, Pantac, and the board of directors asks him to figure out a way to make one of their drugs profitable after it fails its trials. Jekyll, who's the absolute opposite of the I-wanna-be-a-saint persona of the Stevenson character, decides that the best gambit is to incorporate the highly addictive drug into a new brand of chewing gum. Jekyll lays a plot to smuggle the drugged gum into the mouths of the British Royal Family so that they'll endorse the confection to the public.

However, just as Original Jekyll had some dark undercurrents compromising his goodness, this Jekyll shamefully admits to his butler that sometimes he feels like-- doing good. Not long after that, he stumbles across a secret room in his own mansion, where he meets Fake Original Jekyll. In other words, for some ninety years this version of Jekyll escaped the law by both morphing into Hyde (though he just looks like an old guy) and keeping himself alive in the hidden room with various devices. Old Hyde, who may or may not know what a rotter his grandson is, encourages Jekyll to drink the fabled formula, and then expires.

You see where this is going: Nasty Jekyll becomes a goody-good Hyde, his angelic nature displayed by the way his dark hair turns curly and golden. (The same thing happens to everyone else who gets exposed to the serum.) So Angel Hyde zooms off to the Royal Palace and foils the plot against the royals, mostly by dumb luck. None of Nasty Jekyll's pawns recognize Angel Hyde, including ruthless Barbara.

Angel Hyde runs back home, followed by his own thugs. In a fun reverse of the usual Hyde-ing-strategy, the fugitive transforms back into Jekyll and waves off the henchmen. Nasty Jekyll is appalled at the good deeds of his other self and swears never to revert. However, he begins to make schemes to seduce Barbara. His secretary shows her distaste for her employer by punching him to the ceiling, and adds insult to injury by saying that she's fallen for the curly-haired golden boy. There's no trace of this feeling in the one scene Barbara has with Hyde, but this sudden amour serves its purpose: Jekyll finally transforms back into Hyde so he can get some. Unfortunately for Barbara, Angel Hyde is too nice to have sex, and he even uses the serum on her, making Barbara a golden-haired goody-good. The two of them then attempt to spread their goodness gospel to the corrupt Pantac heads, but there's a reversal I won't detail, and this transforms a movie that looks like a silly comedy into a sour irony in which the villains win. 

I can't exactly say that either the goofy humor or the satirical elements work all that well, but I have a muted appreciation for the way the writers inverted some of the Jekyll-Hyde tropes. The original title of this film was "Doctor Jekyll Junior," which might have been better, since in Stevenson Hyde is sorta-kinda Jekyll's younger self. The confusing Italian title translates to "Doctor Jekyll and the Kind Lady," and Angel Hyde is called a homosexual several times, which is-- pretty confusing, if as some people say Hyde is supposed to be the "kind lady."