DAUGHTER OF DR. JEKYLL {1957}

IS SHE OR ISN'T SHE?  That's the question hanging over Edgar Ulmer's 1957 poverty row werewolf movie.  Gloria Talbott is about to marry John Agar when Arthur Shields tells her she's really Dr. Jekyll's daughter.  Party pooper!  Jekyll's monstrous creation Mr. Hyde is here categorized as a werewolf and Talbott starts having nightmares that she has inherited her father's lycanthropy; she wakes up covered in blood and yet another villager has been killed in the night.  The mystery isn't much of a mystery as it's pretty clear who the baddie is about 5 minutes into the picture!  Especially since at least one of the film's posters spoils the "mystery".  

Ulmer does his best to spice things up but this is an Allied Production (formerly Monogram Pictures) so there was probably an eleven dollar budget.  Screenwriter Jack Pollexfen (who wrote the great THE MAN FROM PLANET X and the not-so-great THE ATOMIC BRAIN) provides an OK but uninspired script.  The performances of Agar and Talbott do most of the heavy lifting as they are always super-watchable.  And Talbott shows off her spectacularly tiny waist!  Most welcome is the presence in the cast of Martha Wentworth:  famed for her classic spooky record album TERROR TALES BY THE OLD SEA HAG! 

DAUGHTER OF DR. JEKYLL is not great shakes but I suppose an innocuous time-waster.