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Powerful

Don't listen to the negative reviews

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

SPOILER Having, in years past, seen Blacula, Blackenstein, and Scream Blacula, Scream!, it was inevitable that I would get to this. It's the story of Dr. Pride (Wait! I thought it was Dr. Black. Maybe Dr. Black-Pride?), brilliant research scientist by day, and also by day, a volunteer at the Watts Free Clinic & Thrift Shop. Yes, you read that right. You can't make up the Seventies...When one of his serums turns a blackish rat white and makes it so violent that it attacks and kills the other rats in the cage, the good doctor takes it as a sign that this may just be the cure for psoriasis of the liver. Oh, did I mention that he's looking for a cure for psoriasis of the liver? Yep, he's looking for a cure for psoriasis of the liver. Anyways (that's for you, Debbie), Doc BP decides he needs to try it out on humans to get real, useful data...rules, regulations, and ethics be damned. So he tries it out on a patient that's been brought in for liver failure and is not expected to live out the night. She turns white, lunges at him, and promptly dies.This leaves the doctor with no choice but to try it on himself, which is strange, because he's never mentioned that he's even got psoriasis of the liver. Nope, not even an inkling that he's got psoriasis of the liver. This, of course, turns him into an angry white man with incredible strength, who decimates any brotha who stands in his way. Oh, and he also kills hookers because.....well.....um....psoriasis of the liver!!! Bernie Casey is actually pretty good (probably because he's an excellent actor) and the whole thing is a lot of fun. There's a really cool stunt involving him throwing a store clerk through several rows of vegetable bins--no CGI, and all done in a single take, and a bravura finale in which the evil Mr. White...er, Hyde (never called that) climbs the Watts Towers.For some reason.Oh, just go with it!

I love the film BLACULA (1972), but this Blaxpoitation flick is a dull misfire that had potential to be entertaining in an offbeat way early on, but then blows it. Bernie Casey is a laid back and soft spoken scientist whose experiments with a formula for liver preservation cause him to turn into a light-skinned albino who likes to go around killing people, especially hookers. There are some fun moments, like 'Hyde' beating up a group of thugs on the street, and later mowing down a chick with his Rolls Royce. The first transformation scene involves a female patient who Casey uses as a guinea pig, and her makeup is quite creepy, featured in a quick sequence that sends a chill through you -- but that's about all; most of this then turns into slow-moving tedium, unfortunately. Also features Rosalind Cash, known for her role opposite Charlton Heston back in THE OMEGA MAN (1971). The best I can conclude about DR. BLACK, MR. HYDE is at least it's not quite as bad as BLACKENSTEIN (1973). *1/2 out of ****

I like a lot of the movies that came out of the blaxploitation movie era of the 1970s, so I thought this example would be pretty appealing to me. While most examples of the genre were action-based, this is one of several having a horror theme. The premise - a black doctor coming up with a serum that makes him both white and homicidal - had a lot of promise. Indeed, the scenes that show the doctor in his monster personality are kind of fun. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie is not. The rest of the movie is pretty boring, to tell the truth. Bernie Casey tries, but his charisma can't save things. And while the movie is rated "R", it barely earns that rating. In fact, it might have gotten a "PG" rating had the "f" word not been uttered a couple of times. Watch the trailer for this movie instead - it's campy, fast-paced, and a lot of fun - which the movie as a whole isn't.

"Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde" is cursed by the same affliction as its protagonist/villain: it is a good movie that constantly morphs into a bad movie, until finally it's nothing more than a bad movie.The plot starts off well, and is very intriguing at first. Dr. Pryde (Bernie Casey) is working with female colleague Billie Worth (Rosalind Cash) on a way to regenerate damaged liver tissue. He donates medical care to patients of a clinic in the Watts projects. There is some interesting tension in the movie's early scenes, as Dr. Pryde speaks frankly with one of his clinic patients, a prostitute named Linda (Marie O'Henry) that he's treating for hepatitis. Linda is an interesting character in the film, as the first time we see her, she's sitting nude on an examination table. A bold introduction for a character, especially a major one, and I don't remember many films where the director has made a move like this. Linda is very sympathetic, and Pryde seems to truly respect her, despite how some may look down on her profession.The attitude toward prostitution in the film is very matter-of-fact, which was fairly daring for a movie made in the early 70s, and it even proves to be a pivotal plot element. Dr. Pryde has an emotional discussion with Linda about how his mother passed away, which he blames on the inhabitants of a whorehouse who refused to help her. The main three actors here (Casey, Cash, and O'Henry) are all in very good form, which helps give the movie an unusual lift in quality.It's in the details that the film starts to go wrong. If the early scenes with Casey had not been so good, it might have been easier to accept that he descends into a dual personality after taking some of his own liver serum, which of course turns him into a rampaging beast. But considering that Pryde shows so much real interest and respect for Linda at the outset, it's impossible to understand why he would betray her the way he does. After taking a single injection of the serum himself, he then decides to woo Linda on a date, lays a big line on her about not wanting her "professional services" and simply wanting her company, and then he reveals that it was all because he wants her to allow him to inject her with the serum. We lose our sympathy for Pryde, and immediately the film unravels.The Mr. Hyde creature is a strange one. One of the characters in the film refers to it as a "haint", which I don't get. My grandmother was southern, and I know full well that a "haint" is a ghost. Mr. Hyde is just Casey with some contact lenses, facial molds, and white makeup. It's funny how the people in the film are so easily duped by the transformation; in one scene, Hyde rampages inside a seedy bar, gets cut, and bolts outside into the parking lot, where he reverts to Pryde. His pursuers don't recognize him at all, despite the fact that he's wearing the same clothes, bleeding, and all that's changed is his complexion. Hyde doesn't even really look "white", as the movie suggests, and it's hilarious that the black folks in the movie pretend to be fooled by it. Perhaps if the makeup had been more shockingly white, it would have been an effective contrast.It bears mentioning that the film's director also made "Blacula", a film that is eons better than this one. "Blacula" was pure silliness too, but it was very entertaining and it never betrayed its characters the way this one does. "Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde" also has a bigger problem: it has no thrills or chills. There is only one mild shock, when an old lady patient suddenly lunges at a nurse. There's also a fairly effective chase scene where Hyde goes after Linda in an abandoned warehouse.Unfortunately, the remaining parts of the movie are fair to awful. The supporting cast is mostly terrible, especially the policemen who are working on the Hyde case, and it seems as if this part of the script is really badly done. The situations in the film make no sense, including one scene where Mr. Hyde uses his car to run down a pimp in an alley, and the pimp takes out his knife and attempts to "stab" the grille of the car in self defense. Whatever! Maybe if he'd hit a vital belt or gasket, he would have had a chance.In a very strange ending, Hyde climbs the Watts towers and is shot down, just like King Kong. The image is surprisingly haunting, a human body inside the twisting metal of the tower, but it's not enough to make up for the gross sins that have come before it. It's worth mentioning that "Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde" is not nearly as bad as one of the other blaxploitation horror riffs, "Blackenstein"--but those of you who have actually SEEN "Blackenstein" will understand that this is not saying very much.