Michael Caine entered the 1990s in shape-shifting style with Jekyll & Hyde. We take a look back at a lesser-known adaptation… The 1990s was Michael Caine’s last decade as a consistent leading man before he moved more permanently into supporting actor elder statesman territory. This decade features some of his most forgotten work, but it ... The 1990s films of Michael Caine: Jekyll & Hyde (1990)
Michael Caine entered the 1990s in shape-shifting style with Jekyll & Hyde. We take a look back at a lesser-known adaptation…
The 1990s was Michael Caine’s last decade as a consistent leading man before he moved more permanently into supporting actor elder statesman territory. This decade features some of his most forgotten work, but it also contains one of his most beloved and enduring roles as Scrooge in The Muppet Christmas Carol.
His second Best Supporting Actor Academy Award win for The Cider House Rules. A return to his iconic spy character Harry Palmer for two TV movies. The villain role opposite Steven Seagal in the action star’s directorial debut. And the role he was born to play, yes, Joseph Stalin.
Join me as I delve into Caine’s 1990s to see what gems I can unearth and what’s perhaps best left hidden.
Spoilers for Jekyll and Hyde lay ahead…
Directed by: David Wickes (Sweeney!, Jack the Ripper, Frankenstein)
Other Featured Geezers: Cheryl Ladd as Sara Crawford, Joss Ackland as Dr Charles Lanyon, Ronald Pickup as Jeffrey Utterson Esquire, Kevin McNally as Sergeant Hornby, David Schofield as Snape, Lionel Jeffries as Jekyll’s Father.
What’s it all about, Alfie?: Caine is back mooching around Victorian London as Henry Jekyll, a seemingly mild-mannered gentleman doctor who is not above indulging in a spot of self-experimentation.
He’s a widower whose late wife’s father, another eminent physician, Dr Charles Lanyon (Joss Ackland), disapproves of Jekyll’s clinical methods and disapproves even further of Jekyll canoodling with his surviving daughter, Jekyll’s married sister-in-law Sara Crawford (Cheryl Ladd).
But never mind the rigid social cues that frown on such trysts, the major impediment to this relationship is the fact that Jekyll has been taking a potion that makes his head go all bumpy, endows him with super strength, and sets him off on various unchecked criminal rampages as Mr Hyde.
Just a few of Hyde’s known crimes include; “Arson, destruction of property, last night he just walked up to a policeman and broke his arm!”. Try holding down a stable relationship whilst you are arson-ing about every night like Hyde is.
Can Jekyll overcome his monstrous alter-ego? He doesn’t even have the restraint to demur from smooching a married woman in a busy park, so it seems likely not. Drama and horror ensues!
Caine-ness: In his autobiography, What’s it all About, Caine writes; “I was once asked the difference for me between theatre, film and television. They were like three women, I said, the theatre was a woman I loved, but who didn’t love me back and treated me like shit. The cinema was a woman I loved, who loved me back so deeply she didn’t care when I treated her like shit. And television was a one-night stand.”
Here Caine reunites for another quickie with his former televisual fling David Wickes, who wrote and directed the hit two-part 1988 mini-series Jack The Ripper, clearly trying to recapture their previous magic but now falling short. Sometimes a one-night stand should stay as such.
Caine is first billed, and like Jack the Ripper, this is again capitalising on snapping up Caine for the lead role as he’s the biggest star in the cast (no offence Joss Ackland).
We first see Caine’s face less than a minute in on a dusty framed photograph that’s found in an abandoned laboratory. We see him in action as Hyde just a few minutes later, being chased by London Bobbies, when he pushes a poor little flower girl in front of a speeding carriage.
I don’t want to be a Hyde apologist, but in this instance, her going under the carriage was accidental. Now, there’s no excuse for the pushing, that was clearly very rude, but the attempted murder was not premeditated. Also, the girl very clearly becomes a mannequin when she lands in the road, and you shouldn’t be required to show courtesy to mannequins when you’re busy running through London streets. That’s just political correctness gone mad. So, Hyde’s not entirely to blame here but admittedly he should try to be a little more courteous going forward.
The injured girl/part-time mannequin is then taken to nearby Dr Jekyll’s house, and this is when we first see Caine in his normal guise as Jekyll, calmly walking down the stairs.
Too calmly though, as it saddens me to say that this is one of Caine’s weaker performances. His portrayal of Jekyll is sleepy and Caine seems mostly unengaged. That may be an unkind reading as he’s clearly trying to portray the soft sensitive side of Jekyll, to contrast it to the violent Hyde, but he goes too far and instead makes Jekyll blandly diffident.
When he does get more animated there’s a hamminess to many of his line deliveries such as in the scene where he’s pleading for Dr Lanyon to help him; “It’s not a trick, it’s meta-biological change” is not a line reading many could convincingly sell, Caine thusly fails, even though he does his best to make his voice waver and crack emotionally.
In response to Lanyon’s follow up statement that “Only God can help you now”. Jekyll screams “Then why doesn’t he!” like a teenager having a tantrum because their PlayStation has been confiscated, and we cut to him running through the street chucking his coat off in a huff.
There is one scene in which Caine is back to his usual best when, emotionally battered by his double life, a broken Jekyll is giving a lecture with anger bubbling under the surface, as his shaken faith in science is laid bare; “Science will create violent men to fight our wars, docile men to do our work, hell on Earth and I want no part of it.” If there was more of this sort of material, then this movie would have been significantly more engaging.
Now on to his Hyde performance. Jekyll drinks his special concoction, sits in a chair and does a spot of heavy breathing and gurning before screaming as his forehead starts pulsating. This is a similar practical effect to that used in Jack The Ripper when Armand Assante, who was playing an actor portraying Jekyll and Hyde on stage, transforms. David Wickes must have had some spare pulsating heads lying around from that production and wanted to get his money’s worth.
This movie adds additional elements to that previous transformation, which considering this was made on a late 1980s/early 1990s television budget is pretty successful. The effect where his hair shrinks into his skull, and in a later transformation where we see it regrow through his fingers, is especially unnerving.
Hyde’s overall look is fine. It’s not embarrassing, but it’s also not spooky, or even believable as an actual person’s face. It’s an unholy cross between a potato and Gregg Wallace. The scariest thing about his look is the simplest aspect of it, the soulless pitch-black contact lenses.
His Hyde voice is a cross between Ray Winstone and one of the cheaper Doctor Who monsters; “Where is it? My powder. Police gave you my powder” he growls at Lanyon, which is not frightening, as it’s quite hard to make enquiries about powder menacing, however gruff you may sound.
In his autobiography, Caine reflects on how the production; “took five weeks, but it also taught me a lesson. The make-up for Mr Hyde took four hours to put on and another hour to take off. It was hellishly uncomfortable all day, plus of course nobody wanted to have lunch with me looking like that, so I vowed there and then that never again would I do a picture where I had to wear that kind of make-up.”
It’s not recognisable as Caine under the makeup unless, apparently, you are a member of the crew, as Caine recounts; “The first day I wore it, I walked out of the make-up room looking absolutely hideous and rather looking forward to some horrified reaction from the first stranger who saw it. This turned out to be one of the technicians, who just looked at me casually and said, “Hi, Mike,” which was very upsetting after four hours of agony!”
His Hyde is not particularly scary. In the scenes where he’s harassing members of the public, he’s less otherworldly monster and more typical angry drunk, whether it’s manhandling sex workers and throwing sailors down staircases or pushing shelving units onto his father.
In a pub after the barman recognises Hyde from a drawing in the paper, he goes to Hyde and says he can have a drink on the house since it’s his first time there. Hyde, sensing something is up and clocking the newspaper, immediately picks up a keg and chucks it at the barman. It’s amusing how quickly and casually Hyde resorts to barrel chucking as his first option like a Victorian Donkey Kong.
Perhaps I’m being too harsh on Caine as not all critics agreed with my negativity. Caine was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe, but he admittedly won neither.
It’s certainly not the best start to Caine’s 1990s. He has besmirched a great work of classic literature, but he does thankfully redeem himself in just a couple of years’ time with one of my favourite performances of his, in what I believe is a perfect adaptation of a Victorian novella, with The Muppet Christmas Carol.
Caine-nections: This was Caine’s second TV collaboration with writer/director David Wickes after their successful two-part miniseries Jack the Ripper. He was nominated for a Golden Globe for this and had previously won one for Jack the Ripper.
In both there is a barman with a big mallet that he uses to try to prevent bar fights. Was this protective bar mallet a staple of Victorian times?
This was the third adaptation of a work by Robert Louis Stevenson that Caine has starred in after 1966’s underrated comedy The Wrong Box and 1971’s Kidnapped.
Best Non-Caine Actor: Cheryl Ladd, best known for being one of TV’s Charlie’s Angels, is in the position that Jane Seymour inhabited in Jack the Ripper of unnecessary love interest. She gets more to do than Jane did, as her character, Sara Crawford, is integral to the plot, but she gives a worse performance.
There’s no chemistry between her and Caine. When she confesses to not loving her husband, Caine’s delivery of “Oh Sara” falls completely flat. His awkward waltz with her, and his silly Dad jokes that he tells her in the carriage, also don’t help to sell a deep consuming passion between the two.
Joss Ackland fares better as Dr Charles Lanyon even though most of his performance is him being angry and/or incredulous. Although I do strongly disapprove of the way that he treats Sara, even though she is admittedly very annoying.
After she’s been seen smooching with Jekyll in the park, Sara comes into the family dining room to find there’s no chair for her and Lanyon coldly states; “I have no daughter, both are now dead.” He throws her out of his house into the pouring rain. That’s very poor form, Dr Lanyon.
The supporting roles stand out the most such as David Schofield as slimy reporter Snape. “Sharpen your pencils Snape”, his boss says when he thinks they are on to a scoop, “Never blunt Sir” he responds.
I enjoyed the uncharacteristically comedic scene, in a mostly serious movie, in which Snape gets Jekyll to pose shaking hands with the hard of hearing parents of the girl whose life he saved, for a newspaper sketch artist.
Then rounding out the cast in small roles are a few recognisable faces. Kevin McNally as a policeman, Ronald Pickup as a lawyer, Lionel Jeffries as Jekyll’s father and, in a performance that is scarier than Hyde, Miriam Karlin as the grotesque whey-faced brothel madam.
My Bleedin’ Thoughts: This was the end of David Wickes’ collaborations with Caine but not Wickes foray into Victorian telemovies as he followed Jekyll and Hyde with a 1992 adaptation of Frankenstein starring Randy Quaid as the monster. If this had been more of a success would Caine have been cast in that?
I can’t find any solid rating information, or many reviews from the time, so I’m not sure how exactly it was received, but it certainly seems to have left less of an impression than Jack the Ripper did. As far as I can tell, whereas Jack the Ripper was an ITV production with funding from CBS, this was a solely American production for ABC.
The credit “Derived from the story by Robert Louis Stevenson” seems an admission that this isn’t the most faithful of adaptations. The general gist of Stevenson’s novella is intact but the love story, which is a big portion of this film, is all new material. And all unnecessary.
It doesn’t have the most promising of openings, with a man hurrying to an auction of the late Dr Jekyll’s property. A mutton chopped auctioneer says; “These are no ordinary chairs, they’ve seen many a romantic evening”. I don’t think this bloke has the best patter, I certainly don’t find an old chair being “romantically” soiled a selling point, thank you very much. I wouldn’t put that in my eBay listing. David Dickinson he is not.
What this production lacks in other areas it makes up for in loud liquid sound effects. The foley artist was clearly having fun, such as in the scene where Jekyll is operating and a single spurt of blood squelches onto his smock, the dribbling of multiple liquids in his lab that he slowly drains (that scene is not recommend viewing material if you need a wee), and the splosh of soup being served to Lanyon before he disowns Sara. I’m not sure if it says more about me or the film, and what exactly it says, that I was mostly paying attention to interesting sound effects and not the narrative.
The film’s unintentional highlight is the dramatic ending. As the lawyer talks to Sara a child plays in the background, their face turned away from camera.
“I assume he’s Henry’s child?”, the lawyer says. “Oh yes he’s Henry Jekyll’s child” Sara responds and she calls him and he turns around revealing that he has Hyde’s weird lumpy monster face, he looks directly into the camera, there’s a dramatic music sting and we zoom in on his face as the picture turns monochrome. The end. Sadly, there was no sequel, “Son of Hyde”.
Trivia (Courtesy of IMDB): Lionel Jeffries played Caine’s father but in real life he was only seven years older than Caine. He looks the part though, clearly acting opposite Dick Van Dyke took its toll.
This was the debut of Samantha Womack. Perhaps now best known for her role in Eastenders.
Overall Thoughts: An unfortunate misfire with a miscast Caine. Mostly not campy enough for laughs, apart from the ending, and frankly a bit dull. Credit where credit is due though, the Hyde makeup is decent for a 1990s TV budget.
Rating: 1.5/5 Soiled Romantic Chairs
Where You Can Watch This: This is not available to stream or purchase digitally in the UK, and seems to be out of print on physical media here, but has been shown on the Talking Pictures TV channel a few times in the last year.
Up Next: Caine ups his game for a darkly amusing turn in the pitch-black corporate satire A Shock to the System.
