Docteur Jekyll et les femmes

Plot

Dr. Henry Jekyll (Udo Kier), where the doctor is being feted prior to his engagement to the austere Miss Fanny Osborne (Marina Pierro). The guests arrive and are various dignitaries and officials. After a meal, the doctor is summoned to his laboratory, to get his will. He returns to the living room when a scream is heard where one of his guests has been discovered raped and murdered.

Henry Jekyll transforms to his alter ego, Mr. Hyde (Gérard Zalcberg), by taking a bath filled with a chemical cocktail. He emerges physically transformed. His alter ego has none of the restrictions of morality and he proceeds to rape and torture various guests.

Eventually Fanny witnesses one such transformation. She leaps into the bath to be transformed as well. The two transformed leave the house and in a carriage they depart, whilst undertaking blood letting of each other, and love making.

Cast

Release

Borowczyk wanted to call his film Le cas étrange de Dr.Jekyll et Miss Osbourne but his distributors UGC insisted it be released under the title Docteur Jekyll et les femmes. The film was released in France on June 17, 1981. Docteur Jekyll et les femmes never opened commercially in the United States and in Britain it played at one cinema for one week.

The film was released theatrically in the UK under the title The Blood of Dr. Jekyll and then later on video as Bloodlust. On the film's presentation at the Sitges Film Festival, it was shown under the title Docteur Jekyll et Miss Osborne. Arrow films released the film in both the US and UK on April 21, 2015 on Blu Ray and DVD. This was the film's first legitimate commercial release in any medium in the US, and the first in the UK since the VHS era. Arrow also restored Borowczyk's preferred title The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Miss Osbourne.

Reception

The film won Walerian Borowczyk the award for "Best Feature Film Director" at the 1981 Sitges Film Festival.