Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde

Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde is a 1971 British horror film directed by Roy Ward Baker based on the 1886 novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. The film was made by British studio Hammer Film Productions and was their third adaptation of the story after The Ugly Duckling and The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll. The film is notable for showing Jekyll transform into a female Hyde; it also incorporates into the plot aspects of the historical Jack the Ripper and Burke and Hare cases. The title characters were played by the film's stars, Ralph Bates and Martine Beswick. Plot Dr. Henry Jekyll dedicates his life to the curing of all known illnesses; however, his lecherous friend Professor Robertson remarks that Jekyll's experiments take so long to actually be discovered, he will no doubt be dead by the time he is able to achieve anything. Haunted by this remark, Jekyll abandons his studies and obsessively begins searching for an elixir of life, using female hormones taken from fresh cadavers supplied by murderers Burke and Hare, reasoning that these hormones will help him to extend his life since women traditionally live longer than men and have stronger systems. In the apartment above Jekyll's lives a family: an elderly mother, her daughter Susan Spencer, and Susan's brother Howard. Susan is attracted to Jekyll, and he returns her affections, but is too obsessed with his work to make advances. Mixing the female hormones into a serum and drinking it has the effect of changing Jekyll's sex. Susan becomes jealous when she discovers this mysterious woman, but when she confronts Jekyll, to explain the sudden appearance of his female alter ego, he calls her Mrs. Edwina Hyde, saying she is his widowed sister who has come to live with him. Howard, on the other hand, develops a lust for Mrs. Hyde.