Chad Taylor

The moving hand

After digging out my (UK) copy of Raymond Chandler Speaking to quote for the previous post (he liked cats) I started flicking through it, stopping at the many corners I'd folded down. On 5 Feb 1951 Chandler wrote to Hamish Hamilton*:
'I am not much interested in stories about Martians or 3000 A.D... The trouble with fantastic fiction as a general rule is the same trouble that affects Hungarian playwrights** - no third act. The idea and the situation resulting from the idea are fine; but what happens then? How do you turn the corner?'
This the point I was considering in my notes on Brian Clemens' screenplay for Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde. By grafting Stevenson's stories on to the Whitechapel Murders, Clemens gave the original story a third act. To create his elixir of life Jekyll extracts hormones from female corpses. When the corpses run out, he hires corpse robbers (Burke & Hare) who provide an adequate supply. Jekyll's experimental elixir causes his transformation and subsequent addiction. Desperate for more, Jekyll discovers Burke & Hare have been caught, and must resort to killing his own victims. Jekyll becomes the Whitechapel murderer (the name Jack the Ripper is never mentioned) but is caught when he is betrayed by his own inner turmoil, transforming to Hyde at a fatal moment. Bada-bing: Stevenson's two-act novella becomes a three-act screenplay, with a subplot.

It's only a schlocky horror movie, but I really admire the craft behind that storyline.

* Obviously a fake name.
** Hungarian playwrights? No idea about that one. Also: he liked cats.