Daughter of Dr. Jekyll is a low-budget black-and-white 1957 American horror film produced by Jack Pollexfen, directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and released by Allied Artists.

In the film, Janet Smith (Gloria Talbott) learns that she is not only the daughter of the infamous Dr. Henry Jekyll, but is convinced by her guardian, Dr. Lomas (Arthur Shields), that she has inherited her father's transformative condition.

Janet begins to believe that she turns into a monster after two local women are found horribly killed[2] and nearly takes her own life because of it.

Lomas says that their decision is "rash and ill-advised," but then announces that in addition to the house, Janet is inheriting a "sizable fortune" and a huge estate.

George does, but when Janet returns from the lab, she tells him that the wedding is off because Lomas has told her that she is the daughter of the werewolf Dr. Jekyll.

After Lomas takes them to the family crypt to see Jekyll's tomb, Janet says that she fears passing on "this madness" to her and George's future children.

Janet has second, longer nightmare, in which the monster-woman kills Lucy in the woods, while leaving the young man she is with unharmed.

[4] Talbott said in an interview that the actual shooting time was "something like five to seven days" and that most of the filming took place "not on a stage, but in a house" on 6th Street in Los Angeles, near Hancock Park.

[5] The car John Agar is seen driving to the manor house at the beginning of the film is a 1912 Ford Model T. Daughter of Dr. Jekyll has a virtually identical prologue and epilogue.

In the beginning, after a voice-over informs viewers that Dr. Jekyll is dead, the camera cuts to a werewolf, sitting in a smoky lab, who cackles "Are you sure?"

[5] Reflecting the film's low budget, screams heard during the nightmares came from the "convenient and valuable resource known as the Sound Effects Library.

"[8] Daughter of Dr. Jekyll is one of 35 films thematically related to the Stevenson novella and released between 1908 and 2005, according to a filmography compiled by Dr. Michael Delahoyd of Washington State University.

The film was released to theaters at unspecified dates in Belgium, France, Brazil, Greece, Serbia and Spain.

Allied Artists de Mexico distributed the film to theaters there, while Mercator Filmverleih Boho Gaus handled it in Germany.

"[17] About two months earlier, BoxOffice suggested to theater owners in its regular "Exploitips" feature that to drum up business, "At the curb in front of the theatre, have an ambulance bearing a sign: 'For the convenience of those who are overcome by the dual chiller-thrillers,'" a reference to the pairing of The Cyclops and Daughter of Dr.

"[19] Hardy calls the film "bizarre" and "the most unorthodox treatment of Stevenson's theme to date" (i.e., 1985) but also says that "Ulmer's direction is as hypnotic as ever but producer Pollexfen's script leaves him little room for genuine creativity.

For example, he notes that "It somehow manages to confuse Mr. Hyde with a werewolf [and] comes up with the screwy idea that being a drug-induced monster could be an inheritable trait.

"[20] Likewise, American sci-fi film scholar Bill Warren points out the inconsistency of having the werewolf killed with a stake through the heart "like a vampire."

Robert Singer suggests in a book chapter titled "Nothing to Hyde: Reading The Daughter of Dr. Jekyll" that the film "may be read as a critically significant text within the melodramatic crisis of female identity cinema of the 1950s," with Janet treated simultaneously as a child and an adult, being "dressed, undressed, put to sleep, given pills, hypnotized and, when all else fails, she is nearly led to suicide."

"[22] Similarly, Craig makes note of the sexual and patriarchal undertones of Daughter of Dr. Jekyll that are reflected in Janet, who by the end of the film is legally an adult (i.e., age 21) and very soon to be married.

"[5] Nonetheless, despite its shortcomings, some critics still find the movie enjoyable, calling it "immensely silly" and "more amusing than anything"[20] as well as "delightfully daffy" and "an awful lot of fun.